Ethiopia’s Compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child Alternative Report on Discrimination and Violence against LGBTIQ+ Children in Ethiopia
Country: Ethiopia
Partners: House of Guramayle
Issues: Children's Rights, LGBTIQ+ Rights
Mechanism: UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
Report Type: Shadow/Parallel Report
Ethiopia’s domestic legal framework criminalizes consensual same-sex sexual conduct and provides no explicit protection against discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or sex characteristics. Articles 629 and 630 of the 2004 Criminal Code of Ethiopia punish consensual same-sex relations with imprisonment, and related provisions have been interpreted to target perceived “promotion” of homosexuality.
Criminalization leaves LGBTIQ+ people at serious risk of harm and systematic exclusion, particularly when combined with social stigma and lack of legal remedies.
These laws, combined with deeply entrenched stigma and recent waves of online and offline incitement to violence against LGBTIQ+ communities, create a hostile environment for LGBTIQ+ children and adolescents as well as for children in LGBTIQ+ families. LGBTIQ+ people experience severe discrimination, threats, and violence, including young adults, as well as pervasive fear and concealment. Lesbian, bisexual, queer, and transgender women and other marginalized identities are particularly at risk of violence, discrimination, and exclusion.
Developments since October 2024 have further entrenched risks to LGBTIQ+ people, including children. Previous human rights reporting by the co-authors also highlight growing anti-LGBTQ+ campaigning and limited digital rights and protections, leaving LGBTQ+ individuals with little recourse when material calling for violence circulates online.
In this report we use the acronym LGBTIQ to refer to individuals who self-identify as
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intesex, and/or queer. These terms necessarily do not
include everyone who may experience violations of their human rights on the basis of their
real or perceived SOGIESC status, which is why we also include a “+” with the acronym.
Any use of a modified acronym is intentional in that we are speaking only about certain
members of the LGBTIQ+ population.
