Children in Tigray are facing widespread trafficking, sexual exploitation, and forced labor due to the collapse of legal systems, mass displacement, and the erosion of community protection networks following the war, according to a submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Sale and Sexual Exploitation of Children by Gender Empowerment Movement Tigray (GEM Tigray).
The submission documents that child protection institutions remain largely non-functional, with broken police systems, inoperational courts, and no effective referral pathways for survivors, allowing traffickers and abusers to operate with impunity.
More than one million people remain internally displaced in Tigray, and displacement camps such as 70 Kare near Mekelle have become high-risk zones where children lack food, lighting, and security patrols, increasing exposure to abuse and trafficking, warns the report.
It details how trafficking networks re-emerged as borders partially reopened in 2023, with children being smuggled along corridors to Sudan and Djibouti, where girls are sold into sexual servitude and boys into forced labor on farms and mining sites.
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The submission further warns that famine and climate shocks are driving families to send children away in search of food, exposing them to traffickers and abuse. Digital grooming is also increasing due to weak cyber-safety systems and lack of digital literacy.
GEM Tigray calls for cross-border investigative units, survivor-centered justice systems, child-sensitive judicial reform, and the development of a regional cyber-crime unit to prevent online exploitation.
Accordint to the submission, women and girls with disabilities in Tigray are also facing disproportionate sexual violence, institutional abandonment, and exclusion from healthcare and education systems.
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Tigray has the highest disability prevalence in Ethiopia around 30.1percent, far above the national average, according to the document. War-time destruction has intensified exclusion, leaving women with disabilities with limited access to medical care, mental-health services, and education.
According to interviews conducted for the submission, survivors report gang rape, forced pregnancy, and sexual torture, while hospitals including Ayder and Adigrat face staff shortages and medicine scarcity, rendering trauma recovery services nearly nonexistent.
Genet Kidane Gebretsadik, executive director of the Women with Disabilities Development Association in Tigray, stated that “Women with disabilities have compounded pain and are not heard… now they are left on the streets.”
Education has nearly collapsed for girls with disabilities. Ninety-six percent of desks and 88 percent of classrooms were destroyed during the war. Inclusive learning tools and trained teachers are virtually absent, excluding disabled girls from schooling and livelihoods.
Displacement camps offer no protection for women with disabilities, and survivors face social rejection after rape. One displaced woman interviewed was abandoned by her husband after surviving assault by occupying forces, according to GEM Tigray.
The submission accuses Ethiopian authorities of failing to implement domestic disability protections and international human rights obligations, despite constitutional guarantees.
The document also stated that artificial intelligence and digital platforms are being used as tools of harassment, surveillance, and disinformation against women and girls in Tigray.
The report states that women activists and journalists face online abuse, threats, and AI-generated deepfake attacks aimed at silencing dissent. Survivors fear using digital platforms due to harassment by both political actors and armed groups.
AI-driven propaganda has been deployed to discredit women survivors and distort evidence of war crimes, contributing to public denial and retraumatization of victims, according to GEM Tigray.
Meanwhile, destroyed infrastructure and power shortages have cut most women off from the digital world entirely, creating what the submission calls an “AI divide” that entrenches poverty and exclusion.
The submission warns that new military technologies, including drone surveillance and automated targeting systems, raise serious accountability concerns in a region where civilian deaths have already reached crisis levels.
GEM Tigray urges the UN to enforce equal safety standards for tech companies in Ethiopia, fund digital rights protection and include conflict-affected women in global AI governance structures.
It reported that Ethiopia’s official promises on women’s participation in peacebuilding have not translated into reality in Tigray, where survivors and women-led organizations operate amid repression and insecurity.
Peace education policies exist on paper, but the destruction of schools and attacks on educators have dismantled implementation, reads the submission. Civil society now functions mainly in “emergency mode,” focusing on survival rather than reconciliation or justice due to blocked humanitarian corridors and attacks on aid workers.
Women-led movements remain the backbone of peacebuilding but receive inadequate funding and political protection, the report concludes.
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