An International Women’s Day Memorial by TADAUK
Date: March 8, 2026
On this International Women’s Day, as the world dons its colourful ribbons and celebrates the “empowerment” of women, we at the TIgrayan Advocacy in the United Kingdom (TADAUK) refuse to celebrate. We cannot clap while our mothers bleed.
We mark this day instead with a reckoning. We write to you not with perfunctory greetings, but with the weight of 154,000 souls—the documented number of women and girls who have survived sexual violence in Tigray since the genocidal war was unleashed upon us. We write to you because the world has made a conscious choice to look away from the largest systematic use of wartime rape in the 21st century.
To the Women of Tigray: You Are Not Forgotten
To the women of Tigray, hiding in the caves of the highlands or wasting away in the dusty IDP camps of Shire and Mekelle: We see you. We hear you.
You are the ones who walked for eight hours just to carry a 25-litre jerrycan of muddy water on your backs, only to return to a shelter that is not a home, to cook a meal that does not exist. You are the ones who, like Daniet, survived your pregnancies on “hardly one meal a day,” praying your newborn doesn’t get sick because there is no medicine, no oxytocin, and no midwife left to save you.
But your torment is worse than starvation. You have been the direct target of a military strategy orchestrated by the Ethiopian National Defence Forces (ENDF) and their allies. Your bodies were declared a battlefield. The 154,000 figure is not a statistic; it is the number of times the world failed you. It is the number of times you were gang-raped at checkpoints, held captive as sexual slaves in military camps, or violated in front of your children to “punish” the resistance of your fathers and brothers.
You have been subjected to the most brutal form of biological warfare: the weaponisation of your wombs. Yet, you survive. You fashion stretchers from sticks and fertiliser sacks to carry pregnant women to nonexistent clinics. Your resilience is the only light in this darkness, and TADAUK vows that your suffering will not be a footnote in history.
To the People of Tigray: The Nation Beneath the Boot
To the people of Tigray, scattered across the globe or trapped within the siege walls of our region: We carry the shame of a silent world.
While the Pretoria Agreement of 2022 was signed with handshakes and photo ops, the reality on the ground remains a living hell. The guns have largely fallen silent, but the war against women never stopped. The Ethiopian government, which agreed to a “cessation of hostilities,” has failed to provide justice or reparations. Instead, we watch as over 800,000 women languish in IDP centres—places that are supposed to be safe havens but are often sites of continued exploitation and destitution.
We are told to “heal” and “reconcile” while the perpetrators of genocidal rape still wear uniforms and draw salaries in Addis Ababa. We are told to embrace a “Transitional Justice” process that has stalled and been co-opted, ignoring the victim-centred approach required by international law. To the people of Tigray, TADAUK says: Our demand is not crumbs of aid, but accountability. We must continue to document every tear, every scar, and every name until the Hague hears us.
To the Women of Ethiopia: A Cautionary Tale
To the sisters of Ethiopia, in Amhara, Oromia, and the Southern Nations: We reach out to you not as enemies, but as a mirror.
The propaganda machine of Addis Ababa tells you that the women of Tigray are “extremists” deserving of their fate. Do not believe them. When the regime used rape as a tactical weapon against Tigrayan women, they wrote a playbook that will eventually be used against any region that defies the central state. The silence of Ethiopian civil society and the women’s movement in the face of the 154,000 figure is a stain on our shared nationhood’s conscience.
We call on you to stand in solidarity with us. Demand that your government release the full UN-mandated investigation into war crimes. Demand that your representatives in parliament account for the Ethiopian soldiers who turned our villages into brothels. If you remain silent while the women of Tigray are discarded, you are normalising the violence that will one day come for you.
To the Women of the World: Where is Your Sisterhood?
To the global feminist movement, the academics, the activists, and the celebrities who flood social media with #IWD2026 posts today: Where is your outrage?
Rightly, you marched for Ukraine; you screamed for Gaza, but you have whispered for Tigray. The women of Tigray have been subjected to gang rapes so violent that many have died from their injuries. Testimonies collected by human rights groups tell of soldiers raping children in front of their relatives, of militias using sexual mutilation as a tool of ethnic cleansing. And yet, the “sisterhood” is silent.
We ask you: Is it because Tigrayan women are Black? Is it because they are from a region the geopolitically powerful have decided to ignore? If 154,000 European women had been raped in a coordinated campaign, the streets of London, Paris, and Berlin would be flooded with protesters. Where are you?
A Reckoning for the International Community
To UN Women:
You are a disgrace to your mandate. While you issue anodyne statements about “gender equality,” the women you are sworn to protect are being sold for food in IDP camps. You have failed to mount a special mission to Tigray. You have failed to amplify survivors’ voices. You have chosen diplomacy with the Ethiopian regime over justice for the violated. History will judge you harshly. You exist to protect women, yet you abandoned 154,000 of them to preserve “UN access.” You have blood on your hands.
To the United Nations Security Council (UNSC):
You debated for months while Tigray burned. You watered down statements to please the Ethiopian government and its allies. You have invoked Chapter 7 for lesser crises, yet you let the genocide in Tigray slide into its fifth year. Every resolution you failed to pass is a permission slip for the next mass rape. The UNSC has proven it exists not to protect the vulnerable, but to protect the powerful.
To the African Union (AU):
“African solutions for African problems” has proven to be an empty slogan. The AU, which sits in Addis Ababa—literally in the backyard of the perpetrators—has been utterly complicit . Your “maximum restraint” calls are laughable . You watched a member state use food as a weapon and rape as a strategy, and your biggest concern was “preserving the territorial integrity” of the abuser. The AU is a protection racket for tyrants, not a union of African peoples. You betrayed the women of Tigray, and the mothers of this continent will not forget.
To the European Union (EU):
You threaten “sanctions regimes” but refuse to implement them . You freeze budget support but continue to issue visas to the very generals commanding the rape battalions. Your foreign policy is a study in cowardice . You claim to be a beacon of human rights, yet you fund the Ethiopian government through the back door while it uses your silence as a shield. Your “concern” is worthless.
Call to Action: Justice is the Only Gift
TADAUK calls on the international community to stop treating the women of Tigray as a humanitarian problem and start treating them as a political priority.
1. We demand the immediate invocation of the Genocide Convention. The systematic rape of Tigrayan women with the intent to destroy the group constitutes genocide. The signatories must act.
2. We demand an international, independent tribunal to prosecute the Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers involved in the mass rapes. National “transitional justice” is a farce when the perpetrators still hold power .
3. We demand targeted sanctions from the EU, UK, and US against every military commander linked to sexual violence. Freeze their assets. Cancel their visas .
4. We demand that UN Women and the African Union send an all-female, independent fact-finding mission to the IDP camps to document the specific needs and testimonies of the 800,000 displaced women .
The women of Tigray do not need your hashtags. They do not need your “thoughts and prayers.” They need justice. They need the world to acknowledge that their bodies are not a spoil of war, and that their suffering demands a response stronger than silence.
On this International Women’s Day, we refuse to celebrate. We mourn. We rage. And we promise the 154,000: We will not stop until you are free, and until your tormentors are in chains.
TADAAUK.ORG
London
March 8, 2026