A “Feminist” Government: And It’s Repulsive Rape Cover-ups.

Saba's Diary
6 min readFeb 11, 2021

In 2018, Ethiopia appointed it’s first & Africa’s only serving female head of state. It also got the first female Supreme Court president. A female politician was now a chairperson of National Election Board. It even created a brand new ministry, named it Ministry of Peace & handed the leadership over to a woman. Out of 20 cabinet members, 10 of them were women. A notably male dominated post, the Defense Ministry, was also to be lead by a woman for the first time.

Ethiopians rejoiced, the rest of the world applauded and media covered this change with flying compliments. Representation mattered. This was seen as something that can level the gender field. Having a 50% women led cabinet was impressive by any standard since the global average for female government ministers is 18.3 percent . More than a dozen countries have no women cabinet members at all.

President Sahle-Work Zewde has been instrumental in further softening the PM image around the world and the country.

President Sahle-Work Zewde said in her first parliamentarian address vowed to be a voice for women — famously telling MPs that if they thought she was talking too much about women, that she had only just begun. Not only was this move symbolic, many believed it would open the door for gender parity. Who wouldn’t want that?

Mrs. Ashenafi, the Supreme Court President, was the founder and executive director of the Ethiopian Women Lawyers…

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