Taking a look at the world rankings of the most elementary signs of civilisation and democracy, it is rather easy to draw tragic conclusions, which constantly place the small Eritrea among the last.
In June 2015, the United Nations summed up an entire year of research in a document that describes the former Italian colony as one of “the least free countries in the world.” This, unsurprisingly, confirmed the annual findings of a well-known American no profit organisation, the “Freedom House”. According to their findings, Eritrea shares the unenviable privilege of classifying as “the worst of the worst” in the field of human rights with Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Sudan and Somalia.
In addition, I should also refer to the recent and coherent findings from “Reporters Without Borders”, which claim a total lack of pluralism in Eritrea, similar to North Korean.
However, even though these reports are well-known to the political thinkers of Africa, whom refer to Eritrea as “the African North Korea”, it is not so clear to the majority of the public worldwide. While the Asian country is a dominant presence in western newspapers, it is not as common for our media to focus on the Eritrean case, despite the considerable number of central-eastern African migrants constantly risking death by leaving for Europe, mainly Italy.
In this context, it is intuitive that women do not enjoy a respected position.
Nevertheless, after paying the highest of the prices through humiliations and abuses, the latest findings suggest that Eritrean women were able to gain a significant social role, which favoured a singular process of emancipation, unlike every other African country.
This newly achieved self-awareness, which characterises Eritrean women today, directly comes from a thirty years’ war for independence from Ethiopian domination in which the women themselves were forced to fight alongside their male counterparts. Both men and women fought in an apparently egalitarian condition, which gave the oppressed women an opportunity to outperform men, such as: standing out for their logistical support, administration of the finally free communities, and the assistance to the wounded ones.
During Eritrea’s liberation struggle, National Union for Eritrean women (NUEW) succeeded in organising and encouraging women’s participation in the war effort. Since independence in 1991, NUEW has continued to enhance the role of women by raising their political consciousness through literacy campaigns, credit programs, English language lessons, and other skills training.
All this sacrifice helped women earn a respect that ultimately overthrew the old societal standards, where women would find themselves stranded at the lowest levels of society. This is also reflected in some significant achievements, such as an improved access to adequate health care, paid maternity leave, and child care services, the eradication of harmful traditional practices that endanger women’s health and well-being, such as atavistic genital mutilation, which has been prohibited.
Some recent findings also suggest an increase of the percentage of school attendance for women, as well as a universal suffrage for the elections (unfortunately still only theoretical), and the possibility of “female shares”, which give female candidates the 30% of parliamentary seats.
Emancipation has been achieved through war, and it is no longer possible to return society to the way it once was. Eritrean women know that and do not give up, they understand their freedom and their liberation depends on it.
A cura di Clara Piazza
