The world speaks of Tigray’s war as though it ended with the Pretoria Agreement. But for the people of Tigray — especially women — the violence never truly stopped. Foreign forces remain on our land. Displacement continues. Sexual violence survivors still wait for justice that never comes. Mothers struggle to feed families under a humanitarian system that remains obstructed. The peace celebrated abroad has not been felt on the ground, except the silencing of guns.
From Irob to Western Tigray, women face the same dangers that Pretoria promised to end. Eritrean soldiers still occupy parts of our region. Amhara forces still control Tigrayan territories. The institutions responsible for accountability remain politically compromised. And the voices of survivors — the voices that should define any peace process — remain sidelined.
A peace that ignores women’s safety, dignity, and justice is not peace at all. Pretoria may have silenced the international headlines, but it has not silenced the lived suffering of Tigrayans. Until foreign troops withdraw, humanitarian access is restored, and wartime atrocities — especially gender-based crimes — are confronted with genuine accountability, the crisis cannot be declared over.
This exposé reveals that the truce did not deliver protection, justice, or stability, with the exception of ceasefire. It delivered appearances. The truth, especially for Tigrayan women, remains far more painful.
I. A Peace Celebrated Abroad but Incomplete at Home
When the Pretoria Agreement was signed in November 2022, it was heralded as a monumental breakthrough — the African Union’s most ambitious diplomatic accomplishment in years, a model for African-led conflict resolution, and a symbol of the continent’s capacity to contain its own crises. But for the people of Tigray, especially women and girls who bore the brunt of the genocidal war, the so-called “peace” never materialized in lived reality.
Even as capitals voiced praise, Tigrayan women were lining up outside health centers that had neither medicine nor running water. Survivors of rape — thousands of them — were being told the justice system would find a path forward, but even the most basic investigations were disrupted. Mothers returned to farmlands only to discover that their homes were occupied, their fields seized, or their districts annexed by forces who refused to leave. Communities in northern Tigray continued to live under the shadow of Eritrean soldiers who were never withdrawn, despite the absolute clarity of Pretoria Agreement’s demand for foreign troop removal.
The disparity between diplomatic narrative and lived experience is nowhere more stark than in the testimony of women. To them, the truce was not a peace agreement — it was a shifting of political rhetoric that ignored the violence still shaping their daily lives.
II. A Region Where Foreign Forces Still Remain
The most glaring violation of the Pretoria Agreement has been the continued presence of the Eritrean Defence Forces (EDF) in parts of Tigray. The Agreement’s clause on the “withdrawal of foreign forces” was unambiguous, yet international human rights bodies, independent researchers, and UN officials have repeatedly confirmed that Eritrean forces remain entrenched in multiple districts, including Irob, Gulomekeda, and areas surrounding Adigrat.
The UN’s Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia stated plainly that Eritrean forces continue to perpetrate violations post-ceasefire. Human Rights Watch has similarly documented “widespread abuses” by EDF after the truce, including sexual violence, abductions, and extrajudicial killings.
These violations are not merely extensions of the war’s brutality; they are indicators that Eritrea’s occupation has transformed into a normalized presence — one that women describe as a persistent threat. In areas still under EDF control, women continue to avoid traveling alone, gathering firewood, or even attending market days for fear of harassment or assault. Their bodies remain a site of vulnerability in a region supposedly at peace.
The international community’s reluctance to acknowledge ongoing occupation sends a message: the safety of Tigrayan women is negotiable.
III. Western Tigray: A Peace Built on Dispossession
If Eritrean presence in Tigray is a violation driven by foreign influence, the crisis in Western Tigray is one driven by domestic power politics and a systematic campaign of demographic engineering. Since the earliest stages of the war, Western Tigray has been under the control of Amhara regional forces and aligned militias. Even after Pretoria, these forces have refused to vacate the area, continuing a pattern of expulsions, coercive identity reassignments, and property confiscations The UN has characterized these actions as war crimes and crimes against humanity.
For women, the consequences are devastating. Many fled their homes carrying only their children. They lost access to land, livestock, trading networks, and the economic footing essential to their survival. Widows and female-headed households face even greater barriers, as forceful and unconstitutional administrative structures in the occupied zone refuse to recognize their land rights.
In Addis Ababa, international and federal officials often describe the situation in Western Tigray as a “territorial dispute.” On the ground, however, it is a dispossession, as well as gendered dispossession. Tigrayan women displaced from Western Tigray face high rates of food insecurity, an almost complete absence of formal employment, and continued threats if they attempt to return. Humanitarian organizations report that women often arrive at displacement sites malnourished, traumatized, and carrying the physical injuries from genocidal gender based and sexual violence.
Yet the Pretoria Agreement’s promise to restore “constitutional order” has not materialized. Not a single mechanism has been put in place to restore displaced women’s land, property, or civil status. Instead, Western Tigray has become the most vivid example of the gap between what the Agreement promised and what the Ethiopian state has allowed in practice.
IV. The Unfinished Emergency of Genocidal Gender Based and Sexual Violence
Few aspects of the Tigray war were as brutal, systematic, and well-documented as the use of sexual violence as a weapon. Reports from the height of the genocidal war paint a horrific picture: women gang-raped, forcibly impregnated, sexually mutilated, and deliberately infected with sexually transmitted diseases.
A groundbreaking analysis of over 500 medical records from Ayder Hospital and local clinics by Physicians for Human Rights and OJAH concluded that the violence included “mass rape, forced pregnancy, and sexual torture,” amounting to crimes against humanity. The Commission of Inquiry on Tigray Genocide, in its in depth report also added that close to 300,000 women and girls were victimized by “genocidal sexual and gender based violence.”
These atrocities were not incidental. The insertions of metal objects, burning of genitals, and group assaults reveal a coordinated campaign to destroy not only the women themselves but also the reproductive and social fabric of Tigrayan communities.
The Pretoria Agreement, however, created no dedicated mechanism to address sexual violence. The transitional justice process proposed by the Ethiopian government is neither independent nor credible, particularly in cases involving sexual crimes.
Tigrayan women who came forward now fear their testimonies will be abandoned in the name of political convenience. Many have lost faith in both the Ethiopian justice system and international institutions. Without a dedicated, survivor-centered, internationally overseen accountability process, the likelihood that perpetrators will be prosecuted remains extremely low.
V. Humanitarian Access and the Gendered Politics of Aid
The humanitarian crisis in Tigray has not ended; it has merely shifted form. Pretoria pledged unimpeded access to aid, but there continues persistent restrictions, denials, and bureaucratic obstructions.
For women, these obstructions shape every aspect of daily life. Mothers must walk long distances to health centers that lack basic supplies. Pregnant women routinely deliver without medical assistance. Adolescent girls lack sanitary pads, leading to missed schooling and heightened vulnerability. Survivors of genocidal gender based and sexual violence cannot access trauma care or reconstructive surgery because medical supply chains have not been restored.
Food insecurity disproportionately affects women and children. ACLED, in June 2025, reported that there are over 878,000 IDPs in Tigray. In displacement camps, women are often the last to eat. Many skip meals to feed children or elderly relatives. Even when aid convoys arrive, male-dominated distribution structures can disadvantage female-headed households, particularly widows or young mothers.
This humanitarian deprivation, layered on top of lingering violence and occupation, produces a dangerous social environment where women are forced into exploitative labor, transactional sex, or unsafe migration — not because they choose to, but because the architecture of the peace process left them no alternative.
VI. The Gendered Failure of Ethiopia’s Peace Architecture
What the Pretoria Agreement exposed — perhaps unintentionally — is that Ethiopia’s peace and security institutions are fundamentally ill-equipped for the gendered realities of its conflicts. They remain deeply centralized, often politically influenced, and resistant to transparency. This creates a system where power, not law, dictates protection.
Tigrayan women’s exclusion from the peace negotiations and transitional justice design was not incidental; it was symptomatic of a broader political culture that sees women as passive recipients of peace rather than active authors of it.
Despite warnings, the AU and international partners have not pushed for gender-centered reforms. Instead, they have embraced a narrative that Pretoria “ended the war,” allowing Ethiopia to regain diplomatic legitimacy without addressing the crimes that women endured.
VII. Tigrayan Women at the Intersection of Trauma and Leadership
Amid the ruins of unimplemented agreements, Tigrayan women remain the backbone of community survival. They rebuild homes, care for the injured, bury the dead, and recreate social networks where formal institutions have collapsed. Their resilience is both remarkable and unacceptable — for no community should have to rely on resilience in place of rights.
Women-led initiatives in Tigray have emerged as some of the most vital forces in reconstruction. These include trauma counseling collectives, communal savings groups, and support networks for sexual violence survivors. Though under-resourced and often operating without government support, they reflect a radical truth: the people most excluded from the peace process are the same people sustaining what little peace exists on the ground.
VIII. The Future: Between Stagnation and the Possibility of Real Peace
The contradiction at the center of the Pretoria Agreement is this: it created the appearance of peace without the substance of it, with the exception of ceasefire. For Tigrayan women, the Agreement has left them in a suspended state of insecurity, neither fully at war nor genuinely at peace.
A sustainable future requires a radical rethinking of Ethiopia’s peace architecture — one that places gender at the center rather than at the margins. This means bringing women’s organizations into justice design, prosecuting wartime gender crimes through independent and international mechanisms, restoring displaced women’s land rights, guaranteeing safe humanitarian access, and removing foreign and militia forces from all of Tigray.
Above all, it requires listening to Tigrayan women not as victims alone, but as the most accurate narrators of what peace requires.
The Pretoria Agreement has already entered history as a diplomatic milestone. But in Tigray, especially for women, it remains an unfulfilled promise. The world may have moved on, but we live daily with the consequences of a truce that protected political narratives more than human lives.
***********************************************
Batseba Seifu is a Founder and Chairperson of GEM Tigray, Gender Empowerment Movement Tigray. She has a Masters of Public Administration from New York University and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Law and Justice from Central Washington University with Distinction.
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How a Broken Truce Deepens Tigray’s Crisis and Targets Women
The world speaks of Tigray’s war as though it ended with the Pretoria Agreement. But for the people of Tigray — especially women — the violence never truly stopped. Foreign forces remain on our land. Displacement continues. Sexual violence survivors still wait for justice that never comes. Mothers struggle to feed families under a humanitarian system that remains obstructed. The peace celebrated abroad has not been felt on the ground, except the silencing of guns.
From Irob to Western Tigray, women face the same dangers that Pretoria promised to end. Eritrean soldiers still occupy parts of our region. Amhara forces still control Tigrayan territories. The institutions responsible for accountability remain politically compromised. And the voices of survivors — the voices that should define any peace process — remain sidelined.
A peace that ignores women’s safety, dignity, and justice is not peace at all. Pretoria may have silenced the international headlines, but it has not silenced the lived suffering of Tigrayans. Until foreign troops withdraw, humanitarian access is restored, and wartime atrocities — especially gender-based crimes — are confronted with genuine accountability, the crisis cannot be declared over.
This exposé reveals that the truce did not deliver protection, justice, or stability, with the exception of ceasefire. It delivered appearances. The truth, especially for Tigrayan women, remains far more painful.
I. A Peace Celebrated Abroad but Incomplete at Home
When the Pretoria Agreement was signed in November 2022, it was heralded as a monumental breakthrough — the African Union’s most ambitious diplomatic accomplishment in years, a model for African-led conflict resolution, and a symbol of the continent’s capacity to contain its own crises. But for the people of Tigray, especially women and girls who bore the brunt of the genocidal war, the so-called “peace” never materialized in lived reality.
Even as capitals voiced praise, Tigrayan women were lining up outside health centers that had neither medicine nor running water. Survivors of rape — thousands of them — were being told the justice system would find a path forward, but even the most basic investigations were disrupted. Mothers returned to farmlands only to discover that their homes were occupied, their fields seized, or their districts annexed by forces who refused to leave. Communities in northern Tigray continued to live under the shadow of Eritrean soldiers who were never withdrawn, despite the absolute clarity of Pretoria Agreement’s demand for foreign troop removal.
The disparity between diplomatic narrative and lived experience is nowhere more stark than in the testimony of women. To them, the truce was not a peace agreement — it was a shifting of political rhetoric that ignored the violence still shaping their daily lives.
II. A Region Where Foreign Forces Still Remain
The most glaring violation of the Pretoria Agreement has been the continued presence of the Eritrean Defence Forces (EDF) in parts of Tigray. The Agreement’s clause on the “withdrawal of foreign forces” was unambiguous, yet international human rights bodies, independent researchers, and UN officials have repeatedly confirmed that Eritrean forces remain entrenched in multiple districts, including Irob, Gulomekeda, and areas surrounding Adigrat.
The UN’s Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia stated plainly that Eritrean forces continue to perpetrate violations post-ceasefire. Human Rights Watch has similarly documented “widespread abuses” by EDF after the truce, including sexual violence, abductions, and extrajudicial killings.
These violations are not merely extensions of the war’s brutality; they are indicators that Eritrea’s occupation has transformed into a normalized presence — one that women describe as a persistent threat. In areas still under EDF control, women continue to avoid traveling alone, gathering firewood, or even attending market days for fear of harassment or assault. Their bodies remain a site of vulnerability in a region supposedly at peace.
The international community’s reluctance to acknowledge ongoing occupation sends a message: the safety of Tigrayan women is negotiable.
III. Western Tigray: A Peace Built on Dispossession
If Eritrean presence in Tigray is a violation driven by foreign influence, the crisis in Western Tigray is one driven by domestic power politics and a systematic campaign of demographic engineering. Since the earliest stages of the war, Western Tigray has been under the control of Amhara regional forces and aligned militias. Even after Pretoria, these forces have refused to vacate the area, continuing a pattern of expulsions, coercive identity reassignments, and property confiscations The UN has characterized these actions as war crimes and crimes against humanity.
For women, the consequences are devastating. Many fled their homes carrying only their children. They lost access to land, livestock, trading networks, and the economic footing essential to their survival. Widows and female-headed households face even greater barriers, as forceful and unconstitutional administrative structures in the occupied zone refuse to recognize their land rights.
In Addis Ababa, international and federal officials often describe the situation in Western Tigray as a “territorial dispute.” On the ground, however, it is a dispossession, as well as gendered dispossession. Tigrayan women displaced from Western Tigray face high rates of food insecurity, an almost complete absence of formal employment, and continued threats if they attempt to return. Humanitarian organizations report that women often arrive at displacement sites malnourished, traumatized, and carrying the physical injuries from genocidal gender based and sexual violence.
Yet the Pretoria Agreement’s promise to restore “constitutional order” has not materialized. Not a single mechanism has been put in place to restore displaced women’s land, property, or civil status. Instead, Western Tigray has become the most vivid example of the gap between what the Agreement promised and what the Ethiopian state has allowed in practice.
IV. The Unfinished Emergency of Genocidal Gender Based and Sexual Violence
Few aspects of the Tigray war were as brutal, systematic, and well-documented as the use of sexual violence as a weapon. Reports from the height of the genocidal war paint a horrific picture: women gang-raped, forcibly impregnated, sexually mutilated, and deliberately infected with sexually transmitted diseases.
A groundbreaking analysis of over 500 medical records from Ayder Hospital and local clinics by Physicians for Human Rights and OJAH concluded that the violence included “mass rape, forced pregnancy, and sexual torture,” amounting to crimes against humanity. The Commission of Inquiry on Tigray Genocide, in its in depth report also added that close to 300,000 women and girls were victimized by “genocidal sexual and gender based violence.”
These atrocities were not incidental. The insertions of metal objects, burning of genitals, and group assaults reveal a coordinated campaign to destroy not only the women themselves but also the reproductive and social fabric of Tigrayan communities.
The Pretoria Agreement, however, created no dedicated mechanism to address sexual violence. The transitional justice process proposed by the Ethiopian government is neither independent nor credible, particularly in cases involving sexual crimes.
Tigrayan women who came forward now fear their testimonies will be abandoned in the name of political convenience. Many have lost faith in both the Ethiopian justice system and international institutions. Without a dedicated, survivor-centered, internationally overseen accountability process, the likelihood that perpetrators will be prosecuted remains extremely low.
V. Humanitarian Access and the Gendered Politics of Aid
The humanitarian crisis in Tigray has not ended; it has merely shifted form. Pretoria pledged unimpeded access to aid, but there continues persistent restrictions, denials, and bureaucratic obstructions.
For women, these obstructions shape every aspect of daily life. Mothers must walk long distances to health centers that lack basic supplies. Pregnant women routinely deliver without medical assistance. Adolescent girls lack sanitary pads, leading to missed schooling and heightened vulnerability. Survivors of genocidal gender based and sexual violence cannot access trauma care or reconstructive surgery because medical supply chains have not been restored.
Food insecurity disproportionately affects women and children. ACLED, in June 2025, reported that there are over 878,000 IDPs in Tigray. In displacement camps, women are often the last to eat. Many skip meals to feed children or elderly relatives. Even when aid convoys arrive, male-dominated distribution structures can disadvantage female-headed households, particularly widows or young mothers.
This humanitarian deprivation, layered on top of lingering violence and occupation, produces a dangerous social environment where women are forced into exploitative labor, transactional sex, or unsafe migration — not because they choose to, but because the architecture of the peace process left them no alternative.
VI. The Gendered Failure of Ethiopia’s Peace Architecture
What the Pretoria Agreement exposed — perhaps unintentionally — is that Ethiopia’s peace and security institutions are fundamentally ill-equipped for the gendered realities of its conflicts. They remain deeply centralized, often politically influenced, and resistant to transparency. This creates a system where power, not law, dictates protection.
Tigrayan women’s exclusion from the peace negotiations and transitional justice design was not incidental; it was symptomatic of a broader political culture that sees women as passive recipients of peace rather than active authors of it.
Despite warnings, the AU and international partners have not pushed for gender-centered reforms. Instead, they have embraced a narrative that Pretoria “ended the war,” allowing Ethiopia to regain diplomatic legitimacy without addressing the crimes that women endured.
VII. Tigrayan Women at the Intersection of Trauma and Leadership
Amid the ruins of unimplemented agreements, Tigrayan women remain the backbone of community survival. They rebuild homes, care for the injured, bury the dead, and recreate social networks where formal institutions have collapsed. Their resilience is both remarkable and unacceptable — for no community should have to rely on resilience in place of rights.
Women-led initiatives in Tigray have emerged as some of the most vital forces in reconstruction. These include trauma counseling collectives, communal savings groups, and support networks for sexual violence survivors. Though under-resourced and often operating without government support, they reflect a radical truth: the people most excluded from the peace process are the same people sustaining what little peace exists on the ground.
VIII. The Future: Between Stagnation and the Possibility of Real Peace
The contradiction at the center of the Pretoria Agreement is this: it created the appearance of peace without the substance of it, with the exception of ceasefire. For Tigrayan women, the Agreement has left them in a suspended state of insecurity, neither fully at war nor genuinely at peace.
A sustainable future requires a radical rethinking of Ethiopia’s peace architecture — one that places gender at the center rather than at the margins. This means bringing women’s organizations into justice design, prosecuting wartime gender crimes through independent and international mechanisms, restoring displaced women’s land rights, guaranteeing safe humanitarian access, and removing foreign and militia forces from all of Tigray.
Above all, it requires listening to Tigrayan women not as victims alone, but as the most accurate narrators of what peace requires.
The Pretoria Agreement has already entered history as a diplomatic milestone. But in Tigray, especially for women, it remains an unfulfilled promise. The world may have moved on, but we live daily with the consequences of a truce that protected political narratives more than human lives.
***********************************************
Batseba Seifu is a Founder and Chairperson of GEM Tigray, Gender Empowerment Movement Tigray. She has a Masters of Public Administration from New York University and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Law and Justice from Central Washington University with Distinction.
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