Ethiopia

GEOGRAPHICAL INFO

Population: 120,880,600

Capital City: Addis Ababa

Independence from Italy on 5 May 1941 

Government Type: Federal Parliamentary Republic 

Main Party/Dominant Party: Prosperity Party

Prime Minister: Abiy Ahmed (since 2 April 2018)

President: Sahle-Work Zewde (since 25 October 2018)

Economic Activities: The state is heavily involved in a diversified economy driven by agriculture, services, transportation, energy, telecommunications, banking, and insurance. 

Transport: Ethiopia has seen development of the transport network in recent years driven by significant investments. However, transport infrastructure is not well advanced. 

Climate/Environmental Issues: Diverse climate ranging from arid in desert to cool in mountainous regions. Some of the major issues that Ethiopia’s physical environment is facing are soil erosion, land degradation, deforestation, water scarcity, and losses in biodiversity. 

Ethnic Groups: Oromo 35.8%, Amhara (Amara) 24.1%, Somali (Somalie) 7.2%, Tigray (Tigrinya) 5.7%, Sidama 4.1%, Gurage 2.6%, Welaita 2.3%, Afar (Affar) 2.2%, Silte 1.3%, Kefficho 1.2%, other 13.5 % (2022 est.)

Official Languages: Amharic is the official national language, but some states have their official working language. For example, Oromo is the official working language in the state of Oromia. Other languages include Somali, Tigrigna (Tigrinya), Sidamo, Wolaytta, Gurage, Afar, Hadiyya, Gamo, Gedeo, Opuuo, Kafa, English, Arabic, and others. 

Religions: Ethiopian Orthodox 43.8%, Muslim 31.3%, Protestant 22.8%, Catholic 0.7%, traditional 0.6%, other 0.8% (2016 est.)

Social Issues: Human rights violations, interethnic conflict, poverty, HIV/AIDS, corruption

Neighbouring countries: Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, South Sudan, Sudan

Historical Background

Ethiopia is the continent’s oldest independent country and the second most populous, with over 100 million people. Except for a brief period under Italy’s Mussolini, the country has always maintained its independence. Ethiopia is a landlocked country largely dependent on its neighbor Djibouti for port access. It is a majority Christian country and is home to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. While Ethiopia has one of the lowest inequality ratios in the world, it also has one of the highest rates of poverty. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who came to power in 2018, has made impressive strides in fostering a more open and freer political and media environment, and he recently won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work ending the conflict with Eritrea. Ethiopia’s greatest challenges currently are continuing to lift the population out of poverty through sustained economic growth, creating political stability, and increasing competition in and the size of the private sector (BBC Monitoring Group, 2019).

Ethiopia is landlocked and shares borders with all the countries of the Horn of Africa. This positions the country to serve as a hub and transit route for migration, besides being a point of departure and destination for migration.  

Although migration abroad used to be uncommon in Ethiopia, Ethiopians started moving abroad in the 20th century to study at Western universities and to complete higher education. The military coup of 1974 ending imperial rule triggered internal displacement and migration to neighbouring countries. Many Western countries offered resettlement to the Ethiopians in camps (Terrazas, 2007). The national capital, Addis Ababa, has also been a popular destination for internal migrants fleeing ethnic violence, and the city has grown from a population of 1.4 million in 1984 to an estimated population of more than 3.5 million in 2000 (Terrazas, 2007).

In 2018, it was estimated that Ethiopia and Uganda hosted 1.2 and 1.8 million refugees respectively, the largest number of African migrants in the East Africa region (encompassing 18 countries) (UNHCR, 2019). Major migration push factors include poverty, conflict, and environmental crises (e.g., droughts and floods), as well as conflict in South Sudan, economic deprivation and open-ended military service in Eritrea, conflict and conflict-induced food insecurity in Somalia (Abebe, 2018). Ethiopia’s 2018 peace agreement with Eritrea preceded a spike in migration from Eritrea into Ethiopia (European Commission, 2019).

Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa and, though it has one of the fastest growing economies, is also one of the poorest, with a per capita income of $790 (World Bank, 2019). Ethiopia’s economy experienced strong growth, averaging 9.9% a year from 2007/08 to 2017/18, compared to a regional average of 5.4%. The country is aiming to reach middle-income status as a country by 2025 (World Bank Group, 2019). Migration into Ethiopia is impacted alternately by the attraction of the country’s fast and steady economic growth on the one hand, and spikes in intercommunal violence, political protests, and environmental disasters on the other (Migration Data Portal, 2019).

Migration Policies

Ethiopia was one of the first countries to implement the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF) developed out of the Summit on Refugees and Migrants hosted by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2016. The country is now widely considered a leading example with its comprehensive and robust refugee protection policies (Abebe, 2018).  In September 2016, Ethiopia committed to nine pledges at the Summit on Refugees and Migrants hosted by the United Nations General Assembly. The summit outlined the main points of the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF) and aims to support both refugee and host community populations. Ethiopia is committed to providing work permits to qualifying refugees, facilitating local integration, and reserving a small percentage of jobs within the industrial sector for refugees. These are commitments followed through in their 2019 amended Refugee Proclamation. National consultations with a diverse range of actors are ongoing to plan and facilitate the implementation of Ethiopia’s nine pledges (UNHCR, 2018).

Implementation to date includes the initiation in October 2017 of civil registration of refugees, including birth, marriage, divorce, and death for new refugees, as well as retroactive registration access for approximately 70,000 refugee children born in the country in the past ten years. Additionally, a countrywide refugee registration infrastructure was launched in 2017 to consolidate information on refugees’ education and professional skills, and family profiles. This biometric information management system will enable refugees to access CRRF opportunities, such as jobs created through Ethiopia’s $500 million new industrial parks funded by the European Union (EU), bearing in mind that 30% of these jobs are open to refugees (ISS, 2018). 

Ethiopia has numerous policies and proclamations directly addressing migrants and refugees. The Immigration Proclamation No. 354/2003 of 2003 outlines requirements for entry into and departure from Ethiopia, including travel documents, visas, registration, and residence permits (National Legislative Bodies, 2003). The Security, Immigration and Refugee Affair Authority Establishment Proclamation No 6/1995 establishes an authority to “execute policies and laws on the state and public security, immigration nationality and refugees” (National Legislative Bodies, 1995).

 In 2019, Ethiopia passed The Refugees Proclamation No. 1110/2019, which repeals the Refugee Proclamation No. 409 of 2004 and provides a more comprehensive outline of protection and assistance to refugees in Ethiopia (National Legislative Bodies, 2019). It stipulates freedom of movement, the right to work, access to social services, and local integration. The new law allows refugees to obtain work permits, access primary education, obtain driver’s licenses, legally register life events such as births and marriages, and opens up access to national financial services, such as banking (UNHCR, 2019b). The UNHCR calls it “one of the most progressive refugee policies in Africa.” Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said that “the passage of this historic law represents a significant milestone in Ethiopia’s long history of welcoming and hosting refugees from across the region for decades,” adding that “By allowing refugees the opportunity to be better integrated into society, Ethiopia is not only upholding its international refugee law obligations but is serving as a model for other refugee hosting nations around the world” (UNHCR, 2019a).

Ethiopia’s refugee policy requires refugees to live in camps, except for a small number of people who are allowed to stay in urban centers due to special considerations. Since 2010, many more have been given the option of living outside of the refugee camps as part of the government’s Out of Camp Policy (Abebe, 2018).

Ethiopia is a signatory to:

● The OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa

● The UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951 (ratified 1969)

● The UN Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1967 (ratified 1969)

● The UN Human Trafficking Protocol, 2000, (ratified 2012) 

● The UN Migrant Smuggling Protocol, 2000 (ratified 2012)

In 2018, Ethiopia lifted a five-year ban on Ethiopian migrants seeking work abroad in the Gulf region (Walk Free Foundation, 2019). Instituted to protect against exploitation, it put Ethiopian migrants at greater risk of trafficking and exploitation since economic desperation pushed people to ignore the ban and travel overseas regardless (AFP, 2018). The new legislation establishes regulations for recruitment agencies, including minimum age, education requirements, and training for migrant workers before departure (Walk Free Foundation, 2019). 

Additional related policies are the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, the Proclamation to Regulate the Issuance of Travel Documents and Visas, and Registration of Foreigners in Ethiopia (1969), the Issuance of Travel Documents and Visas Regulations (1971), the Security, Immigration and Refugee Affairs Authority Establishment Proclamation (1995), the Prevention and Suppression of Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants Proclamation (2015) and the Overseas Proclamation (2016).

Governmental Institutions

The primary body responsible for handling migration issues is the Department for Immigration and Nationality Affairs. The Agency for Refugees & Returnees Affair (ARRA) “hosts asylum-seekers seeking a safe haven in Ethiopia as a result of man-made or natural disasters. The agency creates platforms that enable and assist refugees in escaping poverty by finding durable solutions and strengthening people-to-people relations” (ARRA, 2020). The agency is also responsible for receiving Ethiopian refugees. The Security Immigration and Refugee Affairs Authority (SIRAA) executes policies and laws on the state and public security, immigration nationality, and refugees. The lead coordinator for referring trafficking victims to services (legal, psychosocial, medical, etc.) is the National Anti-Trafficking Council and Task Force, in coordination with other government agencies. The Diaspora Engagement Affairs General Directorate is charged with coordinating diaspora issues at the national and regional levels. The Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia is designated to provide all surveys and censuses used to monitor economic and social growth, including data collection and reports on refugees in the country.

Internal Migration

In the Horn of Africa and Ethiopia, government attention to facilitating safe internal migration, predominantly rural to urban, is crucial to building inclusive and resilient cities. Factors driving internal migration include climate change, job and education opportunities, and the evolving desires of young people (AfDB, OECD & UNDP, 2016). Additional push factors include overpopulation, famine, poverty, land scarcity, governmental agricultural policies, and lack of agricultural resources (Ezra & Kiros, 2001). The two most important factors, however, are age and education. The majority of migrants are young and have more education than non-migrants (Bundervoet, 2017). Research published in 2017 based on research in Southern Ethiopia revealed that 76.2% of migrants left home between the ages of 16 and 25, while 48% of migrants were attending junior education level at the time of departure, and 80% were unmarried. The primary reasons for rural-urban migration were found to be better job opportunities (44%), rural poverty (26%), further education opportunities (10%), starting a business (8%), freedom from cultural restrictions (8%), and better urban services (4%) (Eshetu, & Mohammed, 2017). 

A study on migration in southern Ethiopia revealed that female migrants tend to move shorter distances while men are more likely to venture farther from their place of birth. The mean distance traveled by men in the study was 80.50 kilometers, and for women, it was only 63.08 kilometers (Eshetu & Mohammed, 2017).

Research on internal migration remains limited, with the most recent comprehensive numbers dating from the 2013 Labour Force Survey (LFS). In the five years prior to the 2013 LFS, about 6.5% of the Ethiopian adult population had migrated, marginally higher than the share in 1999 (5.7%). Rural migration remained low as of 2013, with only 3.5% of the total adult population moving zones between 2008 and 2013. Of the total migrant population, the majority were moving from rural to urban settings. From 2008 and 2013, 34% of migrant pathways were rural to urban, while 25% were intra-urban, and 23% were intra-rural. These numbers are reflected in the proportion of migrants in urban areas; in 2013, 17% of urban dwellers were recent migrants (within the previous five years), and 55.4% were all-time migrants. While migrants comprise a greater proportion of the total population in smaller cities, the largest volume of rural-urban migrants headed for Addis Ababa (39% of all rural-urban migrants) (Bundervoet, 2017). On a general scale, Endris & Kassegn (2021), estimate that roughly 50 to 70 percent of the population moves briefly within the country.  

Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)

In 2022, there were a total of 3.9 million people displaced because of conflict in Ethiopia, and another 873,000 were displaced because of disasters (IDMC, 2023). 

Conflict:

Ethiopia has experienced a complex history of internal conflict as well as an ongoing conflict with neighboring Eritrea perpetuated by ethnic divides and consequentially operated along ethnic lines. The features of Ethiopia’s government structure and the ethnic separation of administrative districts in the country have led to a natural formation of self-governing entities made up of specific ethnic groups (e.g., Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Amhara Democratic Party (ADP) that have struggled and continue to struggle to find neutrality on a variety of issues including but not limited to land struggles, and themes of ethnic superiority which have often amounted to numerous human rights violations that have forced people out of their respective regions. 

A defining period in Ethiopia’s history is 1974 to 1991 when the country endured a sustained civil war that was largely driven by ethnic differences and the disdain of rebel forces for the sitting government’s rule. Today, Ethiopia is in the midst of a raging civil war that officially launched as a result of an offensive enacted by the ruling party under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s rule in November 2020. Perpetuated also by conflicts with Eritrean forces in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, the country is facing a severe crisis without a clear end in sight. Again, along ethnic lines, the sitting Ethiopian government, largely made up of members of the now-dissolved ADP and members of the TPLF, started to engage in acts of militarism after TPLF leaders held a regional election in opposition to the prime ministerial election of the newly formed Prosperity Party leader, Abiy Ahmed (Gebre, 2020).  

Despite Abiy Ahmed’s efforts to blend ethnic lines, members of the Tigray ethnic group and the Amhara ethnic group (along with the Ethiopian military and Eritrean forces) have continued to battle one another, leading to a slew of human rights abuses as well as a growing population of internally displaced peoples. The ongoing conflict in Ethiopia is further characterized by heinous war crimes such as mass murder and extreme sexual violence fed by rumours of ethnic cleansing (Human Rights Watch, 2022). USAID reports revealed that members of the different militant groups involved in the conflict would use language indicative of attempts to carry out ethnic cleansing when performing acts of sexual violence and murder of civilians (USAID, 2021). The prevalence of conflict in the country and the resulting factors have contributed to an increase in an already large population of internally displaced people. 

Disaster:

Ethiopia is disadvantaged by natural disasters that are driven largely by climate change, and they include drought, flood, earthquakes, and pest problems. These disasters vary in frequency and severity (Tesso, 2019). Drought and flooding have proven to be the most problematic natural hazards that have impacted the largest portion of Ethiopia’s population. The impact of drought in the country can be seen in the 2011 Horn of Africa drought that left 4.5 million people in a state of food insecurity. Further, the agriculture sector makes up an estimated 75 percent of Ethiopia’s workforce, which gives additional context to how detrimental climate-impacting disasters can be in the country and how such events can contribute to internal displacement beyond destructive causes. As of January 2023, 781,344 people were internally displaced because of droughts (IOM, 2023).

Immigration

The net migration rate in Ethiopia, estimated as of 2017, is -0.2 migrant(s)/1,000 population (Migration Policy Institute - MPI). The majority of migrants in Ethiopia come from Sudan, Somalia, and Eritrea. However, other migrants come from Rwanda, Burundi, Angola, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Uganda, South Africa, and Yemen (MPI, 2007). The total number of international migrants in Ethiopia is 1,253,100, according to research by the United Nations, which accounts for 1.1% of the population (UNDESA, 2019).

Gender/Female Migration

There is a scarcity of information concerning the conditions of female international migrants in Ethiopia. According to UN DESA (2019), as a percentage of the international migration stock, the stock of female international migrants between 1990 – 2010 was fairly stable, oscillating between 47.4 and 47.6. However, it experienced a slight increase from 2015 to 2019 as a percentage of female international migration stock, which stood at 49.1. The rise in domestic job opportunities, advanced technology, the expansion of illegal migration agencies, fall in the cost of migration, intensified the migration of female migrants from Ethiopia to Arab countries. For example, the government reported that in 2017 an estimated 200,000 Ethiopian women migrated to the Middle East in search of job opportunities (Ibid). It is worth noting that a majority of female migrants use irregular channels (Ibid). 

Children

Unaccompanied minors, especially if returning from abroad or having survived exploitation, often require shelter, psychosocial support, family tracing and reunification, and reintegration into their communities of origin (IOM, 2019b). In a 2018 study by the Mixed Migration Centre’s Mixed Migration Monitoring Mechanism Initiative with UNICEF, over 870 children (455 girls and 415 boys) between the ages of 13 and 17 were interviewed to understand the rationale of their migration. The children came from a variety of countries, including Angola, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. About half of the children who participated in the study noted their primary reason for leaving home was violence and general insecurity, followed by personal/family reasons, economic reasons, a lack of freedom and/or discrimination in their country of origin, and a lack of social services. Children reported that they chose destinations where they thought they would have better chances of getting a job and sending remittances home, as well as where there would be improved general security and opportunities to access better education, reunite with family, and access better medical care (IOM, 2019a). Ethiopia hosts the largest number (41,000) of unaccompanied and separated children in the world, with a majority of them fleeing conflict in South Sudan (UNHCR, 2001-2022). 60% of the over 337,000 refugees in the seven camps of Gambella are children (Ibid). 

Regarding internal rural-to-urban migration, research published in 2009 found that youth between 10 and 19 years of age primarily left home for educational opportunities (44.9% of boys and 51.4% of girls), followed by work opportunities (28.6% of boys and 32.4% of girls) and escaping an early marriage (22.7% of girls). Children often embark on their journey with a relative or family friend for education. After migration, however, 13% of girls and 21% of boys do not attend school, and 19% of females who migrated for work were not employed (Fransen & Kuschminder, 2009). The work opportunities for minors in the city are limited to informal work, primarily domestic labour. Jobs as a bar girl are a common entry point into the commercial sexual exploitation of girls (Fransen & Kuschminder, 2009).

Refugees and Asylum Seekers

Ethiopia is the third largest refugee-hosting country on the continent, with a total of 946,682 refugees and asylum seekers in 2023 (UNHCR, 2023). South Sudan refugees constitute the highest refugee population (417,419) hosted in Ethiopia, followed by Somali refugees (302,195) and Eritrean refugees (167,391) (Ibid). Most refugees are housed in 26 refugee camps across the country, though the government since 2010 has been exploring an ‘out-of-camp’ policy that would allow refugees to live in other locations (Abebe, 2018a). Three locations that host the highest number of refugees and asylum seekers include Gambela (383,788), Somali (301,057), and Benishangul-Gumuz (79,236) (UNHCR, 2023). Children under 18 account for 48% of refugees in the camps in the Northern part of Ethiopia (Abebe, 2018b). At the end of 2017, there were 87,400 Ethiopian refugees (0.1% of the population). Refugees headed primarily for Kenya (17,873), South Africa (17,562), the United States (9,987), Yemen (6,205), and South Sudan (4,555) (European Commission, 2019). Following the resurgence of the Tigray conflict in northern Ethiopia, the number of Ethiopian refugees has surged recently. For example, in 2022, Sudan hosted more than 73,000 Ethiopian refugees (UNHCR, 2022).  

Emigration

Migration out of Ethiopia was minimal until the revolution of 1974 that installed the Derg, a Marxist military regime. Previously, only small numbers of the political elite left the country to study in the West and return home to guaranteed positions of power and privilege. After 1974, a refugee crisis emerged as outflows due to political persecution and economic desperation spiked, only falling after the end of the Derg in 1991 and finally reaching a net migration rate of zero by 2007 (Terrazas, 2017). The net migration rate in Ethiopia estimated as of 2017 is -0.2 migrant(s)/1,000 population (MPI, nd). At the end of 2017, there were 800,900 (.8% of the population) Ethiopian migrants outside the country. Migrants predominantly travel to the United States (217,913), Saudi Arabia (148,753), Israel (78,489), Sudan (71,631), and Kenya (36,692) (European Commission, 2019). 

The majority of Ethiopian migrants emigrating out of the country are women (86%) looking for employment opportunities, primarily as domestic workers in the Middle East. 100% of Ethiopian migrant workers in Oman report working as housemaids, while in Lebanon it stood at 81.8% and 75.5% in  Kuwait (IOM, 2017). From 2008-2013, it was reported that 297,512 female domestic workers from Ethiopia’s three key regions of origin – Amhara, Addis Ababa, and Oromia, were legally working in the Middle East. This number may be double. However, due to the volume of migrants using irregular channels to evade the government’s ban at that time on labour migration to the Middle East, the actual figures remain unknown. The ban was enacted to curb labour exploitation after Saudi Arabia expelled over 160,000 Ethiopians from Saudi Arabia between 2013 and 2014, and over 84,000 Ethiopian migrant workers were either voluntarily repatriated or forcibly deported in 2017 (Ayalew, nd). Around the time of the ban, an estimated 1,000 Ethiopian women were leaving the country daily in search of employment abroad, predominantly in Saudi Arabia. Reports of exploitation from employers include passport confiscation and underpayment, as well as physical, sexual, and emotional exploitation (Walk Free, 2019). 

There are four key migration routes from Ethiopia: the Eastern Route, the Northern or Central Mediterranean Route, the Sinai Route, as well as the Southern Route. The Eastern Route goes from the East and Horn of Africa through Yemen to the Gulf Countries, especially Saudi Arabia. The Northern Route (also known as the ‘Central Mediterranean Route’) takes migrants from the East and Horn of Africa to Europe across the Mediterranean Sea, mainly departing from Libya and heading for Italy. The Southern Route (through Kenya towards South Africa) connects the East and Horn of Africa to South Africa. The Sinai Route, the least common now, runs from the East and Horn of Africa through Sudan and Egypt into Israel. The Eastern and Southern routes are the most common (Marchand, Reinold & Silva, 2017). From January to December 2018, data from IOM reveals that 59.93% of Ethiopian migrants were moving within the Horn of Africa, 20.37% headed for the Eastern Route, 14.21% the Northern Route, 4.94% the Southern Route, and .55% other routes. The primary challenges migrants reported facing on these routes were ‘hunger and thirst,’ followed by ‘sickness’ and ‘financial issues’ (DTM, 2018). In 2013, the government banned migration to Saudi Arabia to protect against labour exploitation. The ban was lifted in 2018 (Walk Free, 2019). 

Labour Migration/Brain Drain

Ethiopia suffers greatly from ‘brain drain,’ as opportunities for highly skilled and educated Ethiopians are limited at home. International migrants with tertiary education accounted for 6,400 in 2017 (UNESCO, 2017). For example, the out-migration of Ethiopian medical staff in 2009 was estimated at 25,6%. High rates of poverty and low levels of education make it difficult for the country to build and retain a sizeable skilled workforce or even to create sufficiently attractive opportunities to entice professionals in the diaspora to return (Fransen & Kuschminder, 2009).

Saudi Arabia remains the primary destination for irregular migrants, representing 80-90 percent of Ethiopian labour migration; reportedly, according to international aid agencies as cited by the International Bar Association (2023), 750,000 Ethiopian reside in Saudi Arabia with half of them undocumented. Although trapped in a war-torn zone, tens of thousands of Ethiopians make the perilous journey to Yemen every year in search of better work opportunities (VOA, 2023). However, with the ongoing civil war in Yemen, migrant labourers are stuck in Yemen with no work (Ibid).

Unauthorised Migration/Trafficking, Smuggling

According to the US Department of State (2023), Ethiopia is a Tier 2 country as the government is making significant efforts in some respects but does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. Traffickers operate most commonly in two contexts: targeting parents of children in rural areas to provide them with housing and education in urban centers in exchange for domestic work and targeting migrants headed for the Gulf States for labour, often domestic work. In both situations, victims are vulnerable to labour, sexual, and other forms of exploitation. Girls from Ethiopia’s impoverished rural areas are exploited in domestic servitude and commercial sex within the country, while boys are subjected to forced labour in traditional weaving, construction, agriculture, and street vending (US Department of State, 2023). Many Ethiopian women working in domestic service in the Middle East face severe abuses, including physical and sexual assault, denial of salary, sleep deprivation, passport confiscation, and confinement. Ethiopian women who migrate for work or flee abusive employers in the Middle East are also vulnerable to sex trafficking. Ethiopian men and boys migrate to the Gulf States and other African nations, where traffickers subject them to forced labour. Local NGOs assess that the number of internal trafficking victims exceeds that of external trafficking, particularly children exploited in commercial sex and domestic servitude. Most traffickers are small local operators, often from the victims’ communities, although crime syndicates are also responsible (United States Department of State, 2019). The huge number of IDPs and refugees in the country do not have access to justice, education, and economic opportunity which increases the vulnerability of displaced people as victims of human trafficking (US Department of State, 2023). In the current reporting year (2023), the government reported prosecuting 608 individuals in 497 cases (one for sex trafficking, 16 for labour trafficking, and 591 for unspecified forms of trafficking) and obtained convictions for 225 traffickers (one for sex trafficking two for labour trafficking and 22 for unspecified forms of trafficking) (Ibid).  

Due to the difficulty of migration routes from the Horn of Africa, many migrants turn to smugglers to facilitate the journey. Although geography favours migratory routes, the routes are physically dangerous. Introductions are often made through local brokers, returnees, relatives, and/or friends. Working with a smuggler makes migrants vulnerable to exploitation, as brokers and agents can make false promises and give limited information on labour opportunities or, in worse cases, exploit or traffic migrants. According to an ILO (2017) study on 1,450 potential migrants/migrants, more than 30% of respondents stated that they received no information regarding the nature of the job, and 54% had not received any information about their employer (ILO, 2017).

Remittances

Remittances comprised 1-1.1% of the country’s GDP from 2014-2017, with the total value increasing proportionally alongside the GDP from 470 million in 2014 to 721.9 million Euros in 2017 (Ursa et al., 2019). Personal remittances received in Ethiopia increased from 490.85 billion in 2012 to 766.85 billion in 2022 (World Bank, 2023). Because Ethiopia lacks a robust bank infrastructure and formal remittance service providers, informal remittances are estimated to be extremely high (Marchand, Reinold & Silva, 2017). According to Cenfri (2018), the informal flow of remittances is estimated to be as high as 78% of total remittances in the country.  According to Ratha and Mohopatra as cited by Zerihun (2020), Ethiopia is one of the largest remittance-receiving countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Remittance constitutes a vital source of foreign exchange as it is estimated to be larger than foreign earnings (Ibid). 

Returns and Returnees

According to (IOM, 2019c), Ethiopian returnees from Africa’s Eastern migratory route are coming back to their country at a rate of about 1,000 migrants per month. From January to October 2019, IOM Ethiopia assisted 9,200 returnees (Ibid). This represents close to a twofold increase compared to 2018 when 5,382 returnees were assisted by IOM (Ibid). According to IOM (2019c), between May 2017 and July 2019, some 21,657 Ethiopian minors returned to Ethiopia from Saudi Arabia, comprising 8% of the total number of returnees from Saudi Arabia to the Horn of Africa. In May and June 2019, IOM aided the repatriation of almost 3,000 Ethiopian migrants detained in Yemen, including 1,236 unaccompanied children (IOM, 2019b). The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic precipitated the return of an estimated 550,000 Ethiopian migrants from the Gulf countries in 2020 (UN Women, 2021). After cracking down on illegal labour migration and expelling Ethiopians from the country, Saudi Arabia offered an amnesty period from March to November 2017 to allow irregular migrants to voluntarily leave the country. During this period, a reported 100,000 migrants returned to Ethiopia (United States Department of State, 2019). Faced with the challenge of reintegrating within their communities, the International Labour Organization (ILO), through its FAIRWAY programme in collaboration with the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, provides financial assistance to returnees to facilitate their integration process (ILO, 2021). Also, through the Good Samaritan Association (GSA), safe accommodation, medical care, psychological counselling, and vocational training are provided to returnees (UN Women, 2021).

International and Civil Society Organizations

There is a significant UN presence in Ethiopia made up of multiple UN agencies working to solve some of the most prevalent issues in Ethiopia. FAO, IFAD, ILO, IOM, and OHCHR are a few examples of United Nations entities that seek to address issues related to food security, human rights, labour migration, and investment in rural communities. Other organizations, such as Doctors Without Borders, seek to address major healthcare issues in refugee and IDP communities by providing healthcare for them and providing aid where there are significant health gaps. Conflict-related issues, especially within the context of Ethiopia’s internal conflicts, often attract the attention of human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and the UN Security Council. Such organizations work to ensure the rights of migrants and citizens across Ethiopia while combating the prevalence of human rights violations in the country, especially cases involving internationally displaced peoples and migrants.