DECEMBER 15/2000

 RE YESHIWORK ZEWDE, THE YOUNG ETHIOPIAN GIRL FACING EXECUTION IN BAHRAIN

 The EPRDF government in Addis Abeba is making a lot of noise around its alleged concern and activity to save Yeshiwork Zewde, the young girl condemned to die in Bahrain for having killed the wife of her employer. (SOCEPP apologizes for mistakenly writing on December 14 that the victim was the male employer). Yeshiwork has been in prison for the last two years, for many years now SOCEPP had been calling on the EPRDF government to stop or take action against the traffic of women and children, a lucrative activity supervised and backed by high government officials, and the EPRDF was conspicuous by its silence. Now, all of a sudden, it is making a lot of noise around the Yeshiwork case and even calling on human rights agencies of the world to take up the cases of the Ethiopian maids in the Middle East. It is time to say "Operation Hoodwink" cannot succeed.

What the EPRDF government is trying to do is to divert our attention away from its complicity in the cruel traffic of women and children. * The government has let the so-called employment agencies function with impunity since it is directly involved in the business. * Government officials and loyalists are involved in the sale of children through dubious and bogus adoption agencies and procedures. *

 *The government has refused over the years to give protection to maids taken to the Middle East who have been brutalized and turned into domestic and sexual slaves. It is not the government that should call on international human agencies but rather the latter who should demand from it the respect of rights and the ending of the illegal traffic and sale of young women. The government's attempt to hoodwink all of us and to deny its responsibility should not be allowed to prevail and as we continue to campaign against the execution of Yeshiwork we should bear in mind that there are thousands of other Yeshiworks all over the Middle East with the only difference that they have not as yet been pushed to murder in rage and frustration.

SOCEPP