24th January 2003
Just so that the people of Ethiopia are aware that no-one is safe from me, I went back there for a week in January. The visit with my fellow parliamentarians in September had been excellent but we spent so much time in Ministers' offices I felt I had not had enough time to talk to women parliamentarians and women doctors.
Why in particular did I want to talk to the women parliamentarians and women doctors? Well, all of you will know the way I am about "wimmen" in Ireland being able to make a useful contribution to society and I felt the women of Ethiopia were very much left out. No country can manage by harnessing only half their available population and, while women do an enormous amount of work in this agricultural society, in other areas one does not see full use being made of their abilities.
UNFPA personnel and the members of the Irish Embassy were as helpful as ever, relieved, I think, that anyone was taking an interest in the uphill task they have. On the first day there I met the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Women's Affairs Committee in the Parliament. They are so busy trying to get changes made in the penal law relating to women, in law regarding succession to property, to marriage law and so on, that it is no wonder that my main concerns, health issues, had been put a bit on the back burner. There are about 40 women out of approximately 600 parliamentarians. One great difficulty with legislation in Ethiopia is that central legislation has to be passed by each province so this, of course, takes a great deal of time. For example, the legal age of marriage was raised to 18 over two years ago but one province only has transposed this into local law.
One good thing was that they have started to set up a National Women's Council and have had a most enthusiastic response from women's organisations. Some of the organisations did not know of the existence of others doing similar work. I hope Ireland Aid will give the new body a bit of financial help because it is very difficult to get information out to civil society in this large country with many languages and low literacy rates, particularly amongst women. These women's organisations could spread messages from the centre out to their members.
Next port of call was the woman doctor in the Ministry of Health who is in charge of safe motherhood and family planning. She really has an uphill task, being very short staffed. She asked me if I knew of any obstetricians or midwives, retired or otherwise, who would come out to train GPs and nurses down the country - if anyone is interested I would be most grateful if they would contact me in Leinster House (6183346).
On my last visit I met the women doctors who had recently formed the Ethiopian Medical Women's Association. This time I met the president, a most inspiring ophthalmologist with great plans for mobile clinics to try to do something about the appalling eye problems there. There is a trachoma programme but I saw many, many cases of this agonising condition. When I was down the country and saw the people washing their, and their children's, faces in the filthy river water it was easy to see why it is such a problem.
My ophthalmologist friend's husband is an entomologist who runs an example farm for teaching farmers from all over Ethiopia. This is supported by Ireland Aid and those who were on the course there were so enthusiastic. I didn't discuss the Common Agricultural Policy or the Doha Convention with them. The ophthalmologist and I were bemoaning the fact about how difficult but understandable it was to get doctors and nurses to work down the country with no-one to talk to. Her husband said that people could talk to nature, but we responded it was fine for him because he would know what to say to the bees but it wouldn't do for us.
Fifty per cent of Ethiopians live six hours walk from an all weather road. With a guide I went 150 kms north and 150 kms south of Addis Ababa so I was not really out in the wilds but conditions were very primitive. We stopped to talk to a farmer threshing grain by walking six cattle tied together over it. You can imagine what they did all over the grain every now and then! The farmer was very cheerful and had five children with him, several donkeys and a couple of thin cows. He asked if we would like to meet the rest of the family so over I went to the round mud hut to meet a woman who was unloading plastic water containers from a donkey. With the guide acting as interpreter I asked her how far she had to go for water. She said she had just walked half an hour to the river and back, "which wasn't too bad" she said. The very dirty water was going to be drunk by the family.
The lady asked us into the house which had no windows. When I got inside the door I realised I was standing on a heap of donkey dung. Not fazed I followed her and, when my eyes became accustomed to the dark I realised there was a young woman lying on the ground. This lady I was told had had a baby last week. I bent down to admire the baby at the breast and discovered that a beautiful 11-12 month old (or less) was getting ready to fight it out with the new-born for supper. Thirteen people lived in this circular hut with a fire inside. There was a similar hut for sleeping. I did not go into the merits of a half door for keeping the animals out, but it was not helping them to have donkey dung in the living, cooking and eating area.
As well as the parliamentarians and doctors I met another group of women by chance - the fuel carriers. Standing on the crown of the road 20 kms north of Addis Ababa to admire the view I found myself in the path of a procession of women carrying huge bundles of kindling. Bent into an S shape these tiny women carry about 35 kilos of wood 20 or more kms into the capital and return at night. They probably don't even weigh 35 kilos themselves. They get about 2 Euro for each bundle and make this journey every day of the week. They are frequently raped, I was told, while gathering wood and have to stay in town in the open if they don't sell their burdens. This I saw and I dreaded to think what sort of a night they spent.
Ethiopia has one of the highest fertility rates, highest maternal mortality rate, highest infant mortality rate and under five mortality rate in the world. In some areas one in ten girls get to primary school and fifty per cent of boys is considered very good. The population is growing at 2.4% per year. It is now over seventy million. The drought is there again due to climate change but also because of the huge increase in population people have been pushed into areas which were not farmed before. Shades of Ireland in the 1840s but they have no outlet on boats to America or England. They are beautiful and the country is beautiful and I have threatened them that I will be back again.
Senator Mary Henry, MD
