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Gender, Place & Culture

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Violence against women in Ethiopia

Abbi Kedira; Lul Admasachewb a Department of Economics, Astley Clarke Building, University Road, University of Leicester, UK b Institute for Health Services Effectiveness, Aston Business School, Aston University, Birmingham, Aston Triangle, UK Online publication date: 08 July 2010

To cite this Article Kedir, Abbi and Admasachew, Lul(2010) 'Violence against women in Ethiopia', Gender, Place &

Culture, 17: 4, 437 452

To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/0966369X.2010.485832 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2010.485832

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Gender, Place and Culture Vol. 17, No. 4, August 2010, 437452

Violence against women in Ethiopia

Abbi Kedira* and Lul Admasachewb
Department of Economics, Astley Clarke Building, University Road, University of Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK; bInstitute for Health Services Effectiveness, Aston Business School, Aston University, Aston Triangle, Birmingham, B4 7ET, UK Investigating the experience of violence against women and exploring womens coping strategies is a crucial component of re-tailoring the provision of services for victims/survivors. This article explores violence against women in the context of culture, theory of fear of violence and literature on spaces perceived to be safe or dangerous by women victims/survivors of violence in Ethiopia. To collect the relevant data, we conducted 14 semi-structured interviews with Ethiopian women who are victims/survivors of violence and three interviews with gender experts in Ethiopia. Our group of women suffer in silence and conde only in friends and relatives. They did not resort to institutional support due to lack of awareness and general societal disapproval of such measures. This contrasts with claims by experts that the needs of these women are addressed using an institutional approach. Culture, migration status and lack of negotiating power in places of work are key factors when considering violence. The majority of the respondents in this study occupy both public and private spaces such as bars and homes and have experienced violence in those spaces. The social relations and subsequent offences they endured do not make spaces such as these safe. Education of both sexes, creation of awareness, sustainable resource allocation to support victims/survivors, ratication of the Maputo protocol and effective law enforcement institutions are some of the practical strategies we propose to mitigate the incidence of violence in Ethiopia. Keywords: violence; women; Ethiopia; victim/survivor
a

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Saet ena aheya dula yewodale is an Ethiopian adage, which translates into English as Women and donkeys love being battered.

Introduction The purpose of this article is to investigate the experiences, coping mechanisms and the role that culture plays with regard to Ethiopian women who are victims/survivors1 of domestic violence. We attempt to address three main research questions by interviewing both victims/survivors of violence and gender experts. These are: what are the experiences of victims/survivors of violence? What are the various coping and survival mechanisms adopted by victims/survivors of violence? What is the role of culture in facilitating violence against Ethiopian women? In addition to a critical discussion of the above issues in the context of our research ndings and existing literature, we attempt to suggest some strategies for addressing the problem of violence against women in Ethiopia.

*Corresponding author. Email: ak138@le.ac.uk

ISSN 0966-369X print/ISSN 1360-0524 online q 2010 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/0966369X.2010.485832 http://www.informaworld.com

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According to the World Health Organization (WHO) (2005), violence against women is a universal phenomenon that persists in all countries of the world, and the perpetrators are often well known to the victims/survivors. Yet over the past two decades the analysis of violence against women has predominantly come from the perspective of radical western feminist movements (Milner 2004; Schwartz 2005). Moreover, the critiques within feminism by women of colour and Third World women have highlighted emerging epistemological debates to transform the nature of feminist thinking. Violence against women can be dened either broadly or narrowly. It can either encompass a variety of behaviours that are referred to as violence or simply behaviours that are specic to a given societal and/or geographical context (Dobash and Dobash 1998). Principally, physical, psychological, sexual, emotional and nancial abuses are usually incorporated into these denitions (Mirrlees-Black 1999; Palmar, Sampson and Diamond 2005; WHO 2005). Some women might not even realise that they are victims/survivors of violence and may not consider certain behaviours as violent2 (Evans, Young, and Wallace 1994; Easteal 1996). Yet just because an abused woman accepts a violent behaviour as normal, society in general would not agree (Mirrlees-Black 1999). Even so, the question of who decides what counts as victimisation and its denition, meaning and seriousness varies tremendously across countries (e.g. Somalia) (Kelly and Radford 1998). In this sense, places or place-based identities are not stable, singular or essential (Bondi and Davidson 2005). Rather, the key bodies in non-state societies include kinship networks, communities (especially womens networks), and religious institutions while in state societies, government, professional bodies and the justice system (Johnson 1998). While gender is one salient dimension in these experiences and associations, so too are age, class, ethnicity and many other factors (Bondi and Davidson 2005). Overall, the conceptualisation of violence is also dependent on social relations, as well as geographical spaces and places (Nelson and Seager 2005). When the self is constructed within a system of societal beliefs that normalises violence on a socio-cultural level, the welfare and capability of victims/survivors can be compromised (Burman, Smailes, and Chantler 2004). For instance, Ethiopian community leaders and elders who mediate disputes usually advise abused women to stay in their marriages or jobs even under extremely difcult circumstances. Ethiopia is a country in which violence against women is deeply entrenched and is accepted rather than challenged (Kelly and Radford 1998). For example, a recent study by the WHO (2005) showed that 71% of Ethiopian women experience either physical or sexual violence. Despite this high prevalence of violence, not many women are aware of their rights and do not report such incidents to the police. Many structural features of Ethiopian society inherently encourage violence. For instance, there is a widespread tolerance of violence perpetrated against women at individual, family, community, peer-group, school, religion and state levels. There is also a culture of abducting young girls for marriage in several regions of the country (and this is a view that is supported by our research ndings). In most regions of Ethiopia, there is a tradition of early marriage arrangements against the wishes of girls and protest from a prospective bride is often met with violence. Such harmful practices can result in rape, physical assault and even the death of girls. Our quote at the beginning of this article is a strong reminder of socially and culturally sanctioned beliefs about violence in Ethiopia which have historically legitimised mens domination over women. It is also important to note that Ethiopia has been a war-torn country for more than 30 years, covering the period 1960 to 1990. Ethiopia also has an ongoing feud with its neighbour Eritrea. Some argue that the effects have had a negative impact upon interpersonal relationships and occurrences of violence (see Garrett 1999; Sullivan et al. 2005).

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Currently, Ethiopia has a large army, with demobilised soldiers of the past regime, veterans of the current regime and displaced civilians that are regularly being resettled and migrating to different parts of the country. Even though we do not know the original residence and occupation of perpetrators of violence, we believe that the military history of the nation has a direct or indirect effect on the incidence of sexual assaults in the country. In such a society, it is useful to realise that the women who have been subjected to violence and abuse often comply with their abusers by becoming silent observers. These individuals are usually the friends and supporters of the violent male who retain the status quo by keeping silent and face much personal risk if they intervene by acting on behalf of the victim/survivor (Johnson 1998; Schwartz 2005). Therefore, victims/survivors have a very limited support base to bring an end to the abuse (Sullivan et al. 2005; Bhuyan and Senturia 2005). Violence against women can be facilitated by a variety of factors, such as isolation due to migration and the alienating tendency (behaviour) of violent men, family members of violent men and employers. In this research, the majority of our informants had migrated from the rural part of Ethiopia to the capital, Addis Ababa. Isolation is a function of weak social bonding, which reduces the extent to which victims/survivors of violence are able to sustain attachments through friendship and community networks and receive social support to mitigate violence (Johnson 1998). In several cases, fear and shame of detection lead battered women to voluntarily withdraw from community and family interactions. As it stands, patriarchal societies in Ethiopia include a level of power and control, where traditionally perceived masculine roles are more likely to involve abuse against their female counterparts (Vass and Gold 1995; Milner 2004, Boonzair 2005; Mahalik et al. 2005). In such cases, abusive and controlling behaviours are congruent with their construction of masculinity through their interaction with women. Research indicates that over a quarter of adult abusers reported that their violence served to intimidate, frighten or force the victim/survivor (Dobash and Dobash 1998). In addition, a violent behaviour emerges as something that can be overlooked or even excused for cultural reasons, as a homogenised absence; or alternatively as a pathological presence (Burman and Chantler 2004). Indeed, the general better economic standing of abusive men and their extended family members enables them to engage in nancial abuse (Dobash and Dobash 1998; Burman et al. 2004). Emotional as well as sexual abuse is exercised by manipulation, coercion and using the subservience of women which is common in some cultures (Evans, Young, and Wallace 1994; Eastel 1996). Among others, the ill effects of violence against women include damage to physical and mental health (e.g. depression, anxiety and psychosomatic systems); damage to reproductive and sexual health; and can also lead to eating disorders (WHO 2001; Sullivan et al. 2005). Safe and dangerous spaces Space, place and gender are interconnected, and it is through these factors that inequalities and oppressions are forged and perpetuated (Bondi and Davidson 2005). In the context of this study, the construction of space into safe and dangerous places has some relevance (Pain 1997). By this, we mean that space plays a role in the reproduction of patriarchal ` structures and ideologies vis-a-vis violence against women. For instance, Valentine (1991) discusses the geography of womens fear. A signicant number of incidents of violence against women take place in the home or other private and semi-private places. These places, however, are generally perceived as safe.

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Here we use the notion of place to imply a sense of belonging, safety and well-being. We use home to refer to a place where safety is expected to be stronger, with the opposite expectation for spaces outside home. This is mainly due to the fact that power relations are different in these two places. Place can be conceptualised in different ways in the context of our study. For example, place can be made material through occupation and use of space, it is a product of social relations, and it is also a product of negotiations of power, such as those between a sex worker and a client; a house servant and an employer. In the tradition of feminist geographers, we analyse landscape by deconstructing the binary categories of work and home. There is a strong belief in Ethiopia that the latter space traditionally belongs to women. Hence, the way women are treated when they are in spaces away from home greatly depends on this belief. However, belonging to a given space does not guarantee the absence of violence as the large volume of literature on violence shows. This is particularly the case in the oppressive cultures that exist in Ethiopia. The participants involved in this study work as sex workers and servants. Hence they occupy spaces such as bars and homes. The unequal power relations between men and women are important in these spaces and they are crucial elements in explaining the violence endured by the women studied.
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Collecting and analysing data3 The eldwork for this article was conducted in December 2006 and January 2007 in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. Seventeen women were interviewed, of whom 14 were victims/survivors of violence. The remaining three interviewees were gender experts working on violence-related issues in Ethiopia. We were able to meet a housewife, house maids and women sex workers by visiting one informal employment agency four times. The agency is situated in the heart of Addis Ababa.4 A brieng session was conducted with both the staff of the employment agency and with potential informants.5 The selection process of the 14 informants was based on the fact that they have been victims/survivors of violence at one point in their lives.6 As pointed out above, we conducted interviews with two groups of women, i.e. with victims/survivors of violence and with women aid workers or gender experts. When interviewing victims/survivors, we took two of the informants out of the employment agency to a nearby cafe and conducted interviews. The idea behind taking the respondents away from the employment agency was to make them feel relaxed and to maintain their privacy. These women, however, later explained that they felt unsafe and pointed out that they might be losing out on potential employment opportunities by leaving the employment agency premises. Thus, the remaining 12 interviews were conducted in the privacy of the garden or ofce of the employment agency. Most of the informants chose not to be tape-recorded. As a result, we took notes while conducting the interviews. We took all necessary precautions to conduct the research with ethical clarity, empathy and impartiality. All informants were compensated modestly for each completed or partially completed interview (Zink and Putman 2005). The interviews were conducted in Amharic (the ofcial language of Ethiopia) and we later transcribed and translated the interview text into English. The transcripts were thematically discussed using the three themes identied for this research. These are the experience of violence; coping ` mechanisms of the victims/survivors; and the roles of culture vis-a-vis violence. We acknowledge that the sample size is small and it is not feasible to discuss the specic positions of housewives in Ethiopia based on only one informant. Therefore,

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it should be recognised that our study cannot be generalised to all Ethiopian women although it gives in-depth insights which aid in our understanding of wider Ethiopian society. All concerns, questions and comments raised by the agency staff and informants were addressed. Moreover, informed consent and avoiding any sense of the women being deceived were given special emphasis (De Laine 2000; Leach 2006). Over the course of the eldwork, overlapping and multiple roles emerged. This was due to the sensitive nature of the research, the difculty of laying down social science research guidelines in countries like Ethiopia and the identity of the eld researcher7 (Leach 2006). These created complex and unavoidable ethical dilemmas. In this article, three of these dilemmas are highlighted (De Laine 2000). First, the identity of the eld researcher facilitated going native in many instances. However, there were occasions during which certain identities created mistrust and tipped the scale of power within the relationship. For instance, on one occasion the eld researcher was viewed as a tabloid journalist and a highly paid expatriate from Britain. Such an identity could jeopardise the success of the eldwork and have the potential to impact upon the establishment of trust between researcher and participants. In this instance, immediate action was taken to clarify the identity of the researcher and the purpose of the research work. This was done by providing a detailed debrieng session to those present at the research site. Second, in relation to the rst point, there were times when the eld researcher was perceived as a money pot by most of the employment agency staff and a few of the job seekers. Faced with a dilemma, we chose to comply with some of the expectations. This helped in terms of keeping such individuals at bay and facilitated the overall research process. The research site is a place where brokers meet and several of them aided in facilitating our data collection efforts. However, they were also very persistent about receiving a reward in return. Therefore, they were offered some money by the researcher.8 Third, in a few instances some participants expressed their deep emotional distress when discussing their experiences. In such situations, the researcher tried to comfort them by being friendly and providing advice.9 Moreover, careful consideration was given to ethical issues, such as the balance in power relationships; the right to withdraw; condentiality and anonymity. As is the case in many existing studies, our research was limited in its sample size and the issues that it was able to explore. Overall, the design and execution of the research and data collection proved to be time-consuming, challenging and costly10 (Zink and Putman 2005). In contrast to a more structured interview, semi-structured interviews were used in this research. This allowed for the emergence of thematic content from the interviews (Kulkarni 2006). To recap, a total of 14 victims/survivors of violence were interviewed. One was a housewife, nine worked as sex workers, and four worked as housemaids (servants).11 The three gender experts work for Addis Ababa University, British Council-Ethiopia and EWLA.12 Semi-structured interviews were conducted with gender experts. Each of these interviews was conducted in English and undertaken in places preferred by the experts. The average duration of each interview was approximately 40 minutes and all were tape-recorded. Later the interviews were transcribed and analysed thematically. The interviewees had a vast array of work and research experience in the area of violence against women and consulting with these experts proved to be valuable in terms of getting a cross-section of institutional views regarding violence against women, victim/survivor support and culture. In our prole of informants, the average age was 26. The youngest and oldest in the group were 18 and 53 respectively. Almost all of the informants came from relatively large

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families where they had three or more siblings. All except two of the interviewees were single and three had been co-habiting at some point in their lives.13 Two women were single mothers, one of whom had left her child with her abusive ex-husband due to her poor nancial situation. Before they migrated to the capital city, many of the informants had a livelihood that depended on agriculture. Most of these migrants had lived in the capital city for over ve years and some of the main reasons for their migration were poverty and running away from potential arranged marriages. In the main, the informants have elementary level education, with only three having completed high school (i.e. 12 years of schooling) and one who had attended a college (i.e. two more years after completing high school). Most of these informants indicated their keen desire to work and remain self-sufcient. To integrate the views of the experts with the victims/survivors, we ensured consistency by asking their opinion on the same three research themes. In the remainder of this section, we discuss each theme in turn, putting our results in the context of the existing literature coupled with some critical reections based on our experience.

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Experience of violence: causes and consequences Violence is commonly experienced by the sex workers and domestic servants that were interviewed14 (Burman and Chantler 2004). Almost all of the informants understood violence against women to be an abuse which has physical, emotional, nancial and sexual dimensions. Despite the fact that domestic violence alone accounts for 54% of violence-related crimes in Ethiopia, few individuals discussed it openly. Among our interviewees, only two women had discussed it thoroughly. This nding alone can be seen as a reection of the secrecy surrounding the problem15 (WHO 2005). Except for one woman, all other informants experienced violence at work. Those who were abused at work were relatively young and had a limited experience of co-habitation or marriage. Indeed, it is important to note that domestic abuse is underreported due to factors such as silence, secrecy, culture and the perceived shame (Burman and Chantler 2004). Even when women disclose their experiences, they tend to be selective, choosing when they need help because of safety concerns and not knowing who to trust when attempting to seek help (Zink et al. 2004). Attempted rape is the main problem experienced by informants working in the sex industry. Many resented their jobs but felt they had to continue in order to escape abject poverty. A 22-year-old sex worker indicated that sexual violence is the worst crime she has ever experienced. At the time of the interview, she had a broken nose and a black eye. She described sexual violence and its profound health dimension as follows:
The fact that women have to work as sex workers is an abuse by itself. When people (male clients) get drunk, they can become very cruel and abusive. Battery and name calling is very common in my work. For me, the main concern is the fact that some men do not want to use a condom at all. This is very damaging, as it affects my physical and mental health.16

As can be seen based on the experience of this sex worker, there are unwanted physical health consequences of violence on women. It is obvious that sexual assaults and rape can lead to unwanted pregnancies, illegal abortions and also the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases. These hidden health consequences of violence complicate the lives of numerous women in Ethiopia and elsewhere (Heise, Pitanguy, and Germaine 1994). The majority of the informants also discussed the emotional consequences of violence. This is consistent with the nding of UNICEF (2000) which listed, among

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other things, stress, post-traumatic stress syndrome, depression and sleeping disorders as consequences. Further, the women expressed their frustration over third parties (such as friends, parents, elders, etc.) who comply through silence. They revealed that such actions represent a double blow to them. For instance, an informant who used to work as a bed maker in a small hotel was threatened with rape by her employers son. When she reported this to his parents (i.e. the owners of the hotel) they tried to protect their family name and dignity by labelling her a liar and imposing their silence. Several of the other women remembered occasions when wives and other women took sides with their husbands or male clients against them. This often resulted in either exacerbating or disguising the problem (Panos Ethiopia 2001; Schwartz 2005). This view is supported by the British Council gender expert, stating:
Unlike the western world, women tend to put up with it. This is usually due to poverty. If a marriage breaks down, usually a woman has nowhere to go. Then, the Shemageles [elders] would say You behave yourself, you behave yourself, go back and live together.

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One informant who used to work as a housemaid articulated her experience of starvation and sexual abuse induced by her employers, who were a young couple living in a military camp in Addis Ababa. She said:
I have experienced starvation for over a month. My employers were eating nutritious food but only allowed me to eat grain mixed with water.17 As I could not taste the food let alone eat it, I reached a point where I lost all my energy. I wanted to leave because I could not stand the starvation and the irtatious manner of the male employer. Yet, his wife would not allow me to leave. In the end, I had to run away leaving my salary and clothing behind.

Informants experienced battery, psychological and nancial abuse. Anita18 is a 53-yearold housewife, and indicated that she suffered from a temporary paralysis as a result of the physical violence she had endured at the hands of her husband of 32 years. She indicated that his nancial abuse was so harsh that she was sometimes forced to rely on the assistance of her relatives in order to feed and support her seven children. The interviews with victims/survivors indicate the multiple forms of violence faced by Ethiopian women. They show the severity and complexity of the problem in the country. This is supported by the views of the experts, who have indicated that the cause of violence against women is multi-faceted. The experts also discussed a number of interesting points such as the role of culture and the impact of violence on childrens behaviour. The British Council gender expert explains:
A boy who grew up looking at his mum being beaten up is more likely to be an abusive adult. I also think that in a majority of situations, it [violence] is a nancial situation. . . . It is also sexual incompatibility. There are multiple factors that cause it. It is never one thing or another; it is caused by a multitude of factors. Culturally it is okay to beat up a wife without seeing the impact it has on people. In some parts of the country, it is believed that a man that does not beat his wife does not love her.

The experts indicated that Ethiopian culture encourages women to be submissive. As a result, men think that women are not equal to them and resort to abusive behaviour to show their authority and superiority. Furthermore, the experts explained that early marriage and the abduction of young girls results in violence when they attempt to escape. In many of these cases, women are not welcome to return to their families due to the shame associated with the loss of their virginity or their divorcee status, which might be a factor that perpetuates the existing levels of violence. As a result, the forced isolation of women gives power to their perpetrators to do whatever they choose to do.

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In addition, the experts indicated that lack of education leaves women unemployed, impoverished and powerless. As Tadiwos (2001) highlights, violence perpetrated against women will continue unabated because women have little bargaining power both at home and in the larger community. According to research conducted by EWLA, victim/survivor women have a tendency not to report violence (EWLA 1997). Yet the EWLA gender expert said that in recent times women are starting to break their silence. The EWLA alone gets around 25 women reporting violence on a daily basis. On the whole, the gender experts believed that Ethiopian women from different walks of life tend to be affected by violence mainly due to poverty which is often an outcome of lack of skills and education. Coping mechanisms of victims/survivors Understanding the coping strategies of the victims/survivors of violence is crucial. Generally, the rhetoric by institutions of policy legislation and service provision claims that the needs of victims/survivors are being met. However, further understanding of womens coping strategies from the perspective of the victims/survivors themselves would give insight into whether or not this claim is defensible. Identifying whether the women relied on relatives and friends or institutions is essential in order to understand what constructs their coping trajectory.19 The main coping strategy for all women was to leave their jobs. Leaving is a simpler alternative for sex workers and house servants than it is for wives. However, the only housewife interviewed in our study preferred leaving as a strategy to avoid violence. Except for Anita, none of the other informants addressed violence as a crime to be reported to the police.20 In addition, none of the other informants went to any institution which deals with violence-related issues or sought any medical attention for the physical or emotional pain they endured. Such a trend can be the direct consequence of a lack of awareness, culture and condence in dysfunctional institutions or a preference for dealing with abuse as a private matter. All of the informants, including Anita, relied on their relatives to get moral support and for a shoulder to cry on. During the course of the interviews, it was revealed that migration to the capital city Addis Ababa and its immediate effect of isolating women created opportunities for perpetrators. Many informants believed that they would not have been victims/survivors of violence had they been close enough to their families. Indeed, there were some informants who used telephones to communicate with their families though it was not easy mainly due to lack of infrastructure, nancial constraints and the isolating behaviours of their abusers. Therefore, womens subordinate social and economic status played a key role in their oppression (Pain 1997). For instance, a migrant from rural Ethiopia who used to be married to an abusive man indicated that her in-laws made it difcult for her to communicate with her family members. She explains, they [my in-laws] unplug the phone and made me sit at home like I am some kind of prisoner. I had nobody but myself to rely on. This womans experience reveals the inability to rely even on family support when violence is deeply rooted in a society such as Ethiopia. This is in line with our discussion of the role of third parties in perpetuating violence. In this vein, two sex workers who are originally from Addis Ababa and who had their family members close by indicated that physical proximity to family members did not save them from abuse. They suffered in silence mainly because of the shameful, stigmatising and taboo nature of their work. However, they were able to share their pain and gained moral support from close friends. Unsurprisingly, our ndings suggest that the proximity

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of the place where the abuse takes place relative to where family members reside does seem to have a link with a reduced probability of experiencing abuse for married women as opposed to commercial sex workers. For sex workers, however, this is not always the case. Faced with the reality of violence and abuse, several women chose to become more compliant with their abusers. This is a psychological response consistent with the Stockholm Syndrome (Speckhard et al. 2007). This syndrome states that victims/survivors show signs of loyalty to the abuser in spite of potential danger. One sex worker indicated that the best way for her to go forward was to change the way that she reacted towards abuse. Indeed, her case clearly shows that the depth of abuse and/or violence can distort the psychological condition of victims/survivors. If such defence mechanisms of victims/survivors are widespread in Ethiopian society, it can only be detrimental to the effort put in by institutions and other groups which are attempting to mitigate and alleviate current levels of violence. Prayer and crying were identied as cushions against the impact of violence. Overall, the responses provided by the informants tended to focus on personal remedies to defy violence. We found that Ethiopian women more readily conded in those whom they trusted and who they felt understood them better than institution-based aid. Moreover, women originating from non-state supported countries may not have developed the culture of approaching and making use of institutions in one way or another. Clearly, there is an acute lack of awareness and knowledge about ones rights and the availability of institutional support. However, even if victims/survivors are aware of the existence of support, there is limited help, as the experts discuss below. Given the lack of widespread societal support and the recent nature of initiatives designed to help victims/survivors, coping via institutional support is not common. For instance, EWLA has started to provide a temporary refuge in addition to the free legal advice it is providing to victims/survivors of violence.21 Victims/survivors are eligible for temporary shelter if they are willing to sue the perpetrator and prove that they are destitute. In many cases the women are very poor and have nowhere to go. At the time the research was conducted EWLAs refuge could accommodate only six women. The gender expert from EWLA explained the problems related to the provision of temporary shelter and states:
Most of the perpetrators are victims/survivors husbands, partners or fathers. So the victims/survivors have no other place to go back to. So it will be essential to help them . . . As you might probably know, running a shelter diverts us laywers from our professional engagement. It is a job for social workers or other professionals. So we are in a kind of problem in giving this temporary shelter . . . The term temporary is also a difcult concept. How temporary is temporary? Is ten years temporary or is it two years? They do not have any means of survival so how long will you keep them for?

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The experts believe that violence against women should be addressed mainly through the criminal justice system. The gender expert at EWLA added that there were difculties in terms of proving violence for court cases. As is well known, perpetrators usually strike when there are no eyewitnesses. However, EWLA is not discouraged by this. Rather it actively collaborates with other law enforcement bodies, such as the police, to bring the abusers to justice through the criminal justice system. On the whole, raising awareness is the major way in which the British Council and EWLA are attempting to tackle violence against women. Both organisations have been providing educational training, workshops and seminars to women and other professionals

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(e.g. the police). The gender experts from EWLA and the British Council indicated that the training they provided for the police is aimed at teaching that violence goes beyond a private space. The view or attitude of the police is unhelpful and discouraging to victims/survivors and this shows the lengths to which patriarchal societies and institutions will go in order to protect the status quo of men (Panos Ethiopia 2001). As a sustainable alternative which makes victims/survivors nancially independent, the gender experts pointed out the importance of providing loans or working capital to women via micro-nance institutions. This is in agreement with the economic development objectives of many poor countries and it is believed that such an effort will help many victims/survivors to break free from abuse (Bondi and Davidson 2005). Despite their education and exposure through work, all of the gender experts were sceptical about the provision of counselling services as a remedy. This is because the awareness and acceptability of such provision is minimal in Ethiopia. Most of all, there are not enough trained psychiatrists in the country. In the entire country of approximately 80 million people, there are only 20 psychiatrists, one psychiatric hospital and fewer than 200 psychiatric nurses. Recently, there have been attempts to expand services offered by other professions such as social workers. In contrast to the views of victim/survivor informants, all of the experts believed that Ethiopian culture encourages men to be violent. The fact that young boys grow up in an environment where they witness the constant abuse of women only increases the probability that they will perceive these acts of violence against women as normal. This in turn points to the behavioural consequences of violence across generations. In addition to being potentially violent in the future, the clinical psychology literature indicates that children might also suffer from psychological problems if they witness violence (Jaffe, Wolfe, and Wilson 1990). Given the sample size of this study, which is skewed towards sex workers and house servants, the consequences of violence on children is tangential to our argument but an important one for the study of violence in Ethiopia. Culture Before discussing the role of culture and westernisation, we will briey explain their meaning in relation to the Ethiopian context and this study. Here, we draw on an understanding of culture as a collection of norms, beliefs and societal perceptions regarding the status and roles of women. We argue that culture has a direct bearing on the way women understand or react to violence. For instance, in many parts of Africa and also in other parts of the developing world, it is normally assumed that a husband has the right to discipline his wife and this might include physical violence. In the following paragraph, we briey distinguish between different cultures of patriarchy. In many African countries, violence is often embedded within patriarchal societies and because of poverty, religion, limited education and cultural values it is not only embedded but rmly entrenched. Other patriarchal cultures exist within broader and more liberal cultural frameworks, which co-exist to offer some women more freedom and equality, but where violence is used against women to uphold mens dominance. In these environments, women have far more institutional mechanisms in place, but in Ethiopia there are many reasons, such as poverty, stigma, fear and police bias, which prevent women from using local institutional services. We observe that the low status attached to women in Ethiopian societies leads to a presumed tolerance of abuse or violence which is directed at them. Informants were questioned as to what they considered to be the major causes of violence against women.22 Their responses included substance abuse; jealousy; lack

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of love and respect for women; the ways in which boys are raised; and the irrational behaviour of some men who have been wronged by their former wives or partners. Overall, except for a handful of outliers, most of the women did not blame culture. Many did not believe that men could be violent and that they expected women to be subservient as a result of Ethiopian culture. However, the nature of violence against women in Ethiopia is strongly related to cultural beliefs. Many local cultures in Ethiopia perpetuate violence, for example, wife beating is considered to be an acceptable act and this is in agreement with observations made elsewhere in Africa (Amoakohene 2004). Such harmful beliefs work to encourage women to be submissive to men and compliant with abuse. For men, the belief affords an undue sense of supremacy. Villages or communities are intensely patriarchal, with households ruled by men, and women are seriously disempowered in all spheres of life. In other words, Ethiopian women have been living within this hierarchical social space for generations. According to Panos Ethiopia (2001) the historical background of Ethiopia (where war and conict were part of life for many) is reected in individual behaviour, especially that of men. Moreover, western technology such as video and access to the Internet tends to be blamed for the increase in sexual crimes. None of the informants, however, expressed any of these views. Most of the women suggested that privileges for men such as attending good schools, university and travelling around the world might make men less prone to violence. However, in practice women found men to be violent whether they are exposed to these privileges or not. This is not surprising given the fact that some Ethiopian men who talk publicly about liberty, equality and freedom are the very people who commit violence (Panos Ethiopia 2001). One of our expert informants from the British Council reected on this:
Being well read, educated or travelling the world is a fact which is not linked with eliminating violence against women. It is just wealth, its nothing more, nothing less.

The discussion so far indicates that domestic violence exists in a variety of sectors of society regardless of race, culture and living spaces. As indicated above, the gender experts focused on culture-blaming. They all believe that raising awareness is the main route to eliminating or dramatically reducing the problem. They also all agreed that, in principle, people who are educated should not be violent. This is due to the fact that educated individuals are expected to set an example and behave in a manner that is better than others. Like the victims/survivors, the experts were sceptical about the positive impact of education and travel experiences that are a part of cultural life for people in other countries. The gender expert working for the British Council expressed a view about the widespread nature of violence as follows:
Has violence stopped in the western world? It should have stopped by now because there are so many campaigns and adverts by different organisations . . . A doctor husband and a doctor wife, that is to show you the highest level of education, they are ghting all the time . . . When you go down to societys structure, it gets worse.

This quote supports the idea that violence occurs everywhere but there are different degrees of violence within different cultures and different countries.

Conclusion Over recent years, the literature on violence has expanded dramatically. However, there are still gaps in our understanding of this complex phenomenon in countries such as

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Ethiopia (Jasinski 2005). This study provides a detailed account of victims/survivors experiences and their needs in urban Ethiopia. It clearly indicates that the experiences and needs of victims/survivors are context specic (i.e. gender, place and culture specic). We attempted to show that womens attitudes towards violence and their coping strategies are highly reliant on several factors, which include their beliefs, culture, trust mechanisms, nancial independence, emotional strength and individual utilitarian equilibrium. Our ndings have profound implications for the strategies that need to be adopted in order to reduce violence and support victims/survivors. In the remainder of our concluding remarks, we highlight the policies, programmes and educational initiatives that might be useful in tackling the problem of violence against women. From our ndings, we note that different types of context-specic prevention and intervention approaches are needed (Jasinski 2005). The rst and foremost benecial strategy is to educate younger generations about the harmful impacts of violence in order to inuence and change their social attitudes. This is likely to take time but it can be done via mainstream school curriculums, intensifying awareness campaigns, stories and plays. In addition, both governmental and non-governmental organisations need to invest in providing a supportive infrastructure for eeing women. As our research indicates, there is a huge, yet unmet need for accommodating victims/survivors. For the efcient provision of support, there is an urgent need to coordinate the activities of police, social workers and lawyers, which will effectively bring perpetrators to justice, and also aid in the recovery of victims/survivors from their ordeals. Furthermore, educating law enforcement institutions such as the police is of paramount importance. Other measures include ratifying the Maputo protocol,23 asserting the equal status of women in society, exercising severe punishment on perpetrators, targeting migrant women and providing sustained nancial support for aid organisations. Victim/survivor women currently have minimal support and a limited number of resources to depend upon, and require special attention by service providers. The Ethiopian government passed a bill in January 2009 which restricts the activities of foreign and foreign-funded organisations in areas relating to matters such as gender issues, childrens rights and the rights of disabled people. Obviously, this is very damaging to existing efforts to deter violence against women and such bills need to be carefully reconsidered by the government in light of protecting vulnerable individuals such as women and children. In future research, it would be useful to investigate further why Ethiopian women tend to prefer non-institutionalised solutions in addressing violence and forming their own coping strategies (Jasinski 2005). We also need to explore further how support through informal arrangements can be provided to victims/survivors. If women suffer from multiple forms of violence, there should also be multiple intervention projects. We recommend further multi-method and longitudinal studies in this area. Acknowledgements
We are very grateful to the editors and all the referees of our paper. Many thanks also to Noel Admasachew who helped in the data collection effort for this research.

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Notes
1. Victims are dened as women who are still enduring violence and survivors are those who have managed to move on. Often women t into both categories at different times and in different spaces; hence, we have used the terminology victim/survivor throughout this article.

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2. In some extreme cases, victims who suffer from Stockholm Syndrome may identify with their abusers. 3. The interviews were carried out by one of the co-authors of this article who used a broker of the employment agency to contact the women who nally consented to be interviewed. The researcher is Ethiopian. See discussion of ethical issues in the text for further information. 4. The housewife interviewed in this study was recruited by a tip-off from one of the gender experts who was involved in this study. The opportunity to involve 20 more housewives was explored but it was not pursued due to time constraints. 5. Note that the agency staff members were not well informed about the major focus of this study mainly for safety and condentiality reasons (WHO 2001). 6. Over 50 job-seeking men and women spend their mornings at the employment agency waiting for an approach from a potential employer. In Ethiopia employment agencies for unskilled labour are run informally, predominantly by male agents. The recruitment process is ad hoc and no contract is signed between the agent, employee and employer. The staff members of the employment agency and managers we approached played a vital role in spreading information about the purpose of our research. The agency staff and the research informants (except for the gender experts) were compensated for their time and cooperation in the form of a modest payment (Zink and Putman 2005). 7. The eld researcher was a 31-year-old Ethiopian woman who speaks the ofcial Ethiopian language Amharic as her mother tongue. 8. The money given was not part of a research fund budget for the study. It was simply what the researcher felt was appropriate to give to the persistent brokers. 9. There was an occasion on which an informant cried over the fact that she had lost her job due to the abusive behaviour of her ex-boss. On this occasion, the researcher proposed to take her out for a treat and provided information about the work of Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA) and its support for victims of abuse. 10. The researchers self-funded this study. Conducting the study was difcult due to the sensitive nature of the content. 11. Many of these women, especially those working in the sex industry, found it difcult to reveal their employment status. In addition, recruiting housewives through a neighbourhood by word-of-mouth proved difcult as such women found it shameful to indicate that their intimate partners abuse them. 12. EWLA is a non-statutory body working in gender-related issues and which provides free legal advice for women in seven different parts of Ethiopia. 13. These women have been victims of arranged marriages, which are commonly practised especially in the northern part of Ethiopia. Violence often results when the women object to the traditional arrangement of marriage. The violence can come from the future husband, his relatives or relatives of the victim/survivor herself. 14. Domestic servants can be abused by both men and women. Here, we discuss only the violence perpetrated by men. 15. Both of these women indicated that their status as mothers has made it difcult to break free. In Ethiopia there is a great degree of stigma attached to children who are raised without a father gure. 16. HIV is a highly prevalent sexual health problem in Ethiopia. 17. In Ethiopia, it is common for housemaids to eat the leftovers of their employers or only food that they are permitted to eat. 18. The real names of informants have been changed for condentiality reasons. 19. As will be highlighted in the remaining part of this article, in Ethiopia there is not much institutionalised provision for victims/survivors of violence. 20. Despite the fact that her husband battered her several times, Anita has never reported such incidents to the police. The worst-case scenario was when he threw her and their seven children out of the house they jointly owned. She sued him under property law, which enabled her and her children to live in the house. Suing him under property law however does not involve reporting him to the police. 21. To our knowledge, this is the only womens refuge in Ethiopia. 22. In essence, our research was conducted to encourage the formulation of themes based on what the informants thought rather than reecting other ideals.

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23. This is a protocol in the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights on womens rights which is designed to harmonise national laws with international standards and take all necessary measures to ght against violence against women. This is done particularly by tackling discrimination which encourages such violations and which perpetuates the marginalisation of women, particularly as regard to their access to justice.

Notes on contributors
Abbi Kedir is a lecturer at the Department of Economics, University of Leicester, UK. He trained as a development economist at the University of Nottingham (UK) with a substantial microeconometrics component. His research interests include household food security, poverty, public health, environment, international trade, maternal health and child anthropometrics. Given the interdisciplinary nature of his work, his papers appear in various international journals in economics, statistics, epidemiology, environmental science and demography. Lul Admasachew is Research Fellow at the Institute for Health Effectiveness, Aston University (UK) and advisor at the Centre for Applied Research and Evaluation International Foundation (Careif). Luls research interests include health, gender discrimination, childrens wellbeing and domestic violence.

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ABSTRACT TRANSLATION Violencia contra las mujeres en Etiopa Investigar la experiencia de la violencia contra mujeres y explorar las estrategias de estas para enfrentarla es un componente crucial de la readecuacion de la provision de los

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servicios para las vctimas/sobrevivientes. Este artculo analiza la violencia contra las mujeres en el contexto de la cultura, la teora del miedo a la violencia y la literatura sobre los espacios que son percibidos como seguros o peligrosos por las mujeres vctimas/sobrevivientes de la violencia en Etiopa. Para recabar los datos relevantes, llevamos a cabo 14 entrevistas semiestructuradas con mujeres etopes que son vctimas/sobrevivientes de violencia, y tres entrevistas con expertos en genero en Etiopa. Nuestro grupo de mujeres sufren en silencio y solo confan sus experiencias a amigos y parientes. No recurrieron al apoyo institucional debido a la falta de conciencia y la desaprobacion social general de dicha medida. Esto contrasta con lo dichos por los expertos de que las necesidades de estas mujeres son encaradas utilizando un enfoque institucional. La cultura, el estatus migratorio y la falta de poder de negociacion en los lugares de trabajo son factores claves cuando se considera la violencia. La mayora de las encuestadas en este estudio ocupan tanto espacios publicos como privados tales como bares y los hogares y han experimentado violencia en esos espacios. Las relaciones sociales y las subsecuentes ofensas que padecieron hacen que estos espacios no sean seguros. La educacion de ambos sexos, la creacion de conciencia, la designacion sostenida de recursos para apoyar a las vctimas/sobrevivientes, la raticacion del protocolo de Maputo y unas instituciones efectivas que hagan cumplir la ley son algunas de las estrategias practicas que proponemos para mitigar la incidencia de la violencia en Etiopa. Palabras clave: violencia; mujeres; Etiopa; vctima/sobreviviente