Government will form Committee of Ministers to Address Domestic Violence Among Ethiopian Immigrants
December 9, 2007
Shulamit Sahalo, the coordinator of Yachdav, the Coalition to Address Ethiopian Domestic Violence |
Knesset members last week termed the rising tide of violence in Ethiopian immigrant families a “social emergency” and called for the formation of a special committee of ministers to improve absorption of Ethiopian immigrants.
The issue was examined at a joint meeting of the Knesset Committees on the Status of Women and Immigrant Absorption on November 28th in the presence of Minster of Welfare Yitzhak Herzog, Minister of Absorption Yaakov Edri and a dozen Knesset members. The meeting was a follow-up session to a June meeting initiated by Yachdav, the SHATIL-led Coalition to Address Ethiopian Domestic Violence.
“The rise in violence in the Ethiopian community is only getting worse and is testimony to our failure as a society to absorb this immigration,” said meeting chair MK Gidon Saar, head of the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women. Both meetings were based on position papers prepared by the Coalition.
Among recommendations reached at the meeting that were advocated by the Coalition: increasing the two daily hours of Amharic radio programming, so more time air can be devoted to preventing domestic violence and teaching Hebrew; implementing programs to help Ethiopian immigrants adopt a modern, less patriarchal family structure; implementing affirmative action so more talented Ethiopian immigrants will be employed in the public sector; and incorporating Ethiopian activists in government committees to take advantage of their cultural knowledge.
Domestic violence among Ethiopian immigrants has been growing at alarming rates. While Ethiopians comprise one percent of the population, 25 percent of women killed by their husbands or partners in the past 10 years have been Ethiopian immigrants.
The Coalition to Address Domestic Violence was formed two years ago after the murder of a participant in SHATIL’s Ethiopian women’s empowerment workshop. This tragic event led Ethiopian women activists to break a community taboo and tackle the issue.
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