December 14, 2000

 ETHIOPIAN GIRL IN DEATH ROW IN BAHRAIN THE PLIGHT OF ETHIOPIAN MAIDS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

A 20 YEARS OLD GIRL,Yeshiwork Zewdu, who had been working as a maid in Bahrain is in death row accused of murdering her employer. Yeshiwork had been subjected to physical and psychological torture by her male employer, had to face sexual harassment, was made to work for very long hours and had not been paid a dinar for the last two years. She was unable to leave her employer because he had confiscated her passport. Yeshiwork's case highlights the plight of thousands of Ethiopian girls (some of them underage) enticed to the Middle East to serve as maids and often as sexual slaves.

SOCEPP had repeatedly called on the EPRDF government to act against the exportation of young girls to the Middle East and to curb the activities of the involved agencies that are in most cases controlled by EPRDF members or loyalists. However, the government has refused to take any action aside from paying lip service from time to time to the seriousness of the issue and promising to open an embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, where the worst violations of the rights of the Ethiopians are happening. In the last four months alone, some 2143 girls have been sent to the Middle East where unscrupulous employers use them as domestic and sexual slaves. Yeshiwork Zewdu was pushed to kill her male employer because her condition had become unbearable and was provoked to act by the torture she had had to endure from her employer. She is no cold- blooded murderer but a victim herself whose dream of working and gaining a living became shattered by the cruel treatment meted to her by the male employer.

SOCEPP calls on the government of Bahrain to desist from executing Yeshiwork Zewde and calls upon all Ethiopians and human rights bodies to take up her case and to defend her. The Bahrani government should show clemency. The EPRDF government in Addis Abeba should once again be roundly condemned for abetting in the selling of citizens to modern slavery in the Middle East. The government cannot hide behind the crocodile tars it sheds whenever the question hits the headlines-it is directly responsible and even profiting from the traffic of women and children to the Middle East and other places.

SOCEPP