The systematic targeting of women’s bodies during wars has emerged as a strategy employed across the globe. As Cristina Lamb states, women are subjected to specific forms of violence, particularly sexual violence, which fall under what has been termed ‘gender-based violence’. It is true that men are also victims of violence, but it is the nature of the violation of the female body, as an expression of domination, that defines such acts as violence of a specifically gender-related nature.
 

This project explores the plight of Eritrean and Tigrayan women who have fled across the borders of three geopolitically intertwined countries — Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan.
 

In these territories, women have continued to suffer violence against their bodies, falling victim to socio-political upheavals and ethnic or border conflicts, despite the 2018 peace treaty between Eritrea and Ethiopia, which earned Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.
 

The initial aim of the project was to document Eritrean women fleeing one of the world’s most repressive regimes and seeking refuge in Ethiopia between 2017 and 2019.Following the invasion of Tigray by the Ethiopian federal army, supported by the Eritrean army and Amhara militias, on 4 November 2020, the scope of the project was expanded to include Tigrayan women, who were also forced to flee to Addis Ababa and refugee camps in Sudan.
 

United Nations human rights experts have accused all forces involved in the Tigray war of crimes against humanity, in particular for the sexual violence perpetrated by the Ethiopian National Defence Forces (ENDF), the Eritrean Defence Forces (EDF) and the Amhara militias (Fano).The EDF have used sexual violence as a weapon of war both against Eritrean women — punished for fleeing their own country — and against Tigrayan women, in an attempt to eradicate their ethnic identity.
 

Their bodies have become battlefields without sides.
 

Soldiers and militias subjected Tigrayan and Eritrean women to individual and gang rape, sexual slavery, mutilation and torture, accompanied by ethnic slurs and death threats. The survivors still bear the physical and psychological scars of this violence today (Amnesty International, 2021).
 

The International Commission of Experts on Human Rights in Ethiopia (ICHREE), established by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2021, investigated these violations. However, the Ethiopian government — which has never acknowledged the war crimes committed by its own forces — has obstructed its mandate by refusing to allow external observers.
 

Yet, amidst this imposed silence, women have found the strength to unite.

Many of them have gathered evidence, testimonies and documents to bring to light the truth that has been denied. Together, they have transformed shame into resistance, fear into solidarity, and pain into words. From being victims of a war, they have become witnesses, guardians of memory and justice, determined to bring truth and accountability to light.