Hanna Lemma is a women鈥檚 rights advocate and feminist researcher from Ethiopia. She is also the founder and director of Addis Powerhouse, a young women-led feminist knowledge production platform that conducts gender research and works to ensure young women鈥檚 meaningful representation in Ethiopian politics and society. In the wake of civil war, Hanna is fighting hard to prevent progress on women鈥檚 rights from becoming a casualty.
Paying the price
Gender-based violence in Ethiopia was already endemic before the outbreak of war in 2020. But the conflict has exacerbated the problem鈥攁nd reduced the political will to address it.
鈥淲omen have paid the utmost price of the war,鈥� says Hanna. Facing heightened gender-based and sexual violence, they鈥檙e also being deprived of crucial services鈥攊ncluding reporting mechanisms and proper healthcare for survivors. Though more critical than ever, women鈥檚 rights have been deprioritized amidst the fighting.
Women also face exclusion from peace processes. 鈥淚nstead of agents of change in reconciliation efforts, young women particularly [are] solely seen as victims of conflict,鈥� Hanna says. Without avenues for engagement, women and women-led organizations end up unable to advocate for themselves.
In the midst of all this, global anti-feminist movements are taking their toll. Though Hanna points to digital platforms as a key mechanism for facilitating women鈥檚 rights advocacy work, access to such platforms also 鈥渉eightens exposure to the global pushback on women鈥檚 rights.鈥�
This kind of messaging is already threatening to derail progress made by Ethiopian feminists. 鈥淲hile more and more women have started speaking up for their rights using apps like Tiktok, more anti-women pages that promote backward gender roles and gender-based violence have also started to surface through such spaces,鈥� Hanna explains. 鈥淏ashing feminism has become the norm.鈥�
Live and learn
From an early age, Hanna saw something wrong with the way she was treated. 鈥淢y activism was born out of the lack of power I felt I had as a young girl on the streets of Addis Ababa,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 always questioned why I was expected to normalize catcalling and other forms of gender-based violence.鈥�
Discovering feminism as a teenager helped her to understand the harmful systems she had already encountered: 鈥淚 primarly used [feminism] to dissect and understand the patriarchal society I was born and raised in.鈥�
It also gave her an outlet and, eventually, a sense of empowerment: 鈥淔eminist activism allowed me to cope through art and writing, and a newly found sisterhood in my community,鈥� she says. 鈥淸It] transformed how I saw power and where I found myself in the ladder of influence.鈥�
For Hanna, activism starts with awareness鈥攁nd that means identifying the endemic sexism that serves to dehumanize women and girls on a daily basis. 鈥淲e have only recognized a very small portion of our culture as 鈥榟armful鈥� so far,鈥� she says, and that leads to the continued reinforcement of misogynistic values and traditions.
Hanna encourages aspiring activists 鈥渢o read, to research, and to explore different topics鈥攖o garner a holistic understanding of the world we live in鈥�. Apathy, she says, is our greatest enemy: we must fight to end the oppression of others just as we do our own.听
She notes that activism looks different for different people. 鈥淚 know that not all of us get the privilege to act visibly against inequality and violence, especially when the current social dynamic makes us dependent on those who have capacity to dominate and punish us,鈥� she says. But there are always ways to act: 鈥淚f you are one, you can start by listening to and supporting other women and amplifying their voices.鈥�
鈥淒issecting culture and the ways it is used to oppress women is the start of a new reality,鈥� Hanna says. 鈥淲e should be able to examine our shared societal values and have conversations around them.鈥� Only then, she emphasizes, can we begin to build a better world for everyone.
Beyond the limits
Hanna envisions a future 鈥渨here we see and acknowledge the humanness in each other before anything鈥�. Freed from gender-based violence, she sees a wealth of possibilities opening up for women and girls: 鈥淚n such a world, so much of women鈥檚 lives would not be spent fearing the opposite sex, protecting ourselves, and advocating for our right to live freely. I can only imagine what we, as women, could do if gender-based violence wasn鈥檛 a constant threat to our lives.鈥�
