Vol. 3 No. 2 (2024): Warfare and Peacemaking Among Matricultures
Research Articles

Reigniting the Embers: Sexual Violence and the Mobilisation of Diasporic Tigrayan Women during the Tigray War, 2020-2023

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  • Chessie Baldwin
Chessie Baldwin
University of Exeter
Black and white photo of four Tigreyan women with their backs to the camera, looking left. Photo by Rod Waddington.

Published 2024-05-09

Keywords

  • Gender,
  • Conflict,
  • Sexual Violence,
  • Tigray,
  • Diaspora

Copyright (c) 2024 Chessie Baldwin (Author)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Reigniting the Embers: Sexual Violence and the Mobilisation of Diasporic Tigrayan Women during the Tigray War, 2020-2023. (2024). Matrix: A Journal for Matricultural Studies, 3(2), 32-59. https://doi.org/10.60676/awd73b65

Abstract

This article examines how far weaponised sexual violence in the Tigray War mobilised diasporic Tigrayan women for war work. It explores intersections between rape as a weapon of war with other forms of gendered violence 
through the testimonies of activist women in the diaspora, arguing that transnational actors positioned themselves as ‘fighters’ through and in response to widespread sexual violence in the region. It explores the extent to which Tigrayan women identified with the collective threat of sexual assault, challenging existing frameworks of gendered conflict participation by paying greater attention to the emotional experience of war for militarised actors beyond the physical conflict zone.

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