So it was one afternoon with a dazed, barely conscious year-old woman wrapped in bloodied towels, who had been repeatedly gang-raped anally and vaginally over a week by 15 Eritrean soldiers. Bleeding profusely from her rectum, she collapsed in the street in her village of Azerber, and a group of priests put her on a bus to Mekele. The woman recently broke down in tears as she recounted her ordeal in January at the hands of Eritrean troops, who have taken over parts of the war-torn region in neighboring Ethiopia. The Eritreans often sodomize their victims, according to the nursing staff, a practice that is deeply taboo in the Orthodox Christian religion of Tigray. This is the time for us. Despite claims by both Ethiopia and Eritrea that they were leaving, Eritrean soldiers are in fact more firmly entrenched than ever in Tigray, where they are brutally gang-raping women, killing civilians , looting hospitals and blocking food and medical aid, The Associated Press has found. A reporter was stopped at five checkpoints manned by sometimes hostile Eritrean soldiers dressed in their beige camouflage uniforms, most armed, as gun shots rang out nearby. And the AP saw dozens of Eritrean troops lining the roads and milling around in at least two villages. Multiple witnesses, survivors of rape, officials and aid workers said Eritrean soldiers have been spotted far from the border, deep in eastern and even southern Tigray, sometimes clad in faded Ethiopian army fatigues. Rather than leaving, witnesses say, the Eritrean soldiers now control key roads and access to some communities and have even turned away Ethiopian authorities at times.


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An Ethiopian woman who says she was gang-raped by armed men is seen during an interview with Reuters in a hospital in the town of Adigrat, Tigray region, Ethiopia, March 18, It was the beginning of an day ordeal in February, during which she says she was repeatedly raped by 23 soldiers who forced nails, a rock and other items into her vagina, and threatened her with a knife. Doctors showed Reuters the bloodstained stone and two 3-inch nails they said they had removed from her body. The woman, 27, is among hundreds who have reported that they were subjected to horrific sexual violence by Ethiopian and allied Eritrean soldiers after fighting broke out in November in the mountainous northern region of Ethiopia, doctors said. Some women were held captive for extended periods, days or weeks at a time, said Dr Fasika Amdeselassie, the top public health official for the government-appointed interim administration in Tigray. Reports of rape have been circulating for months.
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In the U. Department of State reported that:. Eritrea is a source country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced labor and, to a lesser extent, forced prostitution. During the reporting period, acts of forced labor occurred in Eritrea, particularly in connection with the implementation of the country's national service program. Under the parameters set forth in Proclamation of National Service No. Eritrean children work in various economic sectors, including domestic service, street vending, small-scale factories, and agriculture; child laborers frequently suffer abuse from their employers and some may be subjected to conditions of forced labor. Some children in prostitution are likely exploited through third party involvement Each year, large numbers of Eritrean workers migrate in search of work, particularly to the Gulf States and Egypt, where some become victims of forced labor, primarily in domestic servitude.
Prostitution in Eritrea is legal [1] and regulated. There had been courtesans and concubines in the Habesha culture for centuries. After the colonization by Italy in there was an increase in forced prostitution by Italian soldiers , the Italian population was estimated at military and civilian people, with the advent of fascism during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in the increased prostitution for requests for sexual labor from Italian military authorities with an increase in sexual abuse and rape of women and children with the increase in pedophile. In major cities like Assab , Asmara and Massawa , prostitution was common in bars in the "native neighborhoods". Following the federation with Ethiopia in , the Ethiopian troops stationed in Eritrea, and the American troops at Kagnew Station continued the demand for prostitution. In the s there were a hundred prostitutes between Assab, Asmara and Massawa.