On this page, you will find:
To find organisations working for LGBTQI+ rights, visit our Ethiopia LGBTQI+ Resources page.
To find organisations providing legal or other types of assistance to refugees in Ethiopia, visit our Ethiopia Legal Assistance page.
COI Experts
Email: benrawlence@gmail.com
Mr Rawlence is a Country of Origin expert on the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Eritea, and Somalia. He has written numerous articles on issues occuring in the region and also written two books including City of Thorns: Fear and Longing in the World’s Largest Refugee Camp (forthcoming, 2015) and Radio Congo: Signals of Hope from Africa’s Deadliest War. Mr Rawlence can speak Swahili. He worked as a researcher on Ethiopia for Human Rights Watch from 2009-2013 covering a range of issues from forced displacement to torture and rendition and political repression. He has a good understanding of the political dimensions of ethnic discrimination and the hidden nature of much of Ethiopia’s state torture system.
Email: danielrezene@gmail.com
Dr. Daniel R. Mekonnen is an Eritrean human rights lawyer, and a former Judge of the Central Provincial Court in Asmara (Eritrea). He has written numerous expert reports to immigration tribunals, lawyers and NGOs in Africa, Europe, Middle East and North America. Having lived and worked in 9 different countries (South Africa, Belgium, Holland, Ireland, Germany, UK, Norway, Hungary and Switzerland), he has assumed several academic and professional appointments, including that of a Senior Legal Advisor and Research Professor at the Oslo-based International Law and Policy Institute (ILPI), a Visiting Fellow at the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law, a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, and a Research Fellow at the School of Law in Queen’s University Belfast. His book (co-authored with Kjetil Tronvoll, 2014), The African Garrison State: Human Rights and Political Development in Eritrea, was included in the “Outstanding Academic Titles” list of January 2015, published by the CHOICE magazine of the American Library Association (ALA). His opinions/speeches/interviews have been widely featured in the following international forums and global media outlets: the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the Geneva Summit on Human Rights and Democracy, Al-Jazeera TV, BBC, Boston’s NPR News, Die Wochenzeitung, Deutsche Welle, International Business Times, IRIN News, Klassekampen, Neue Luzerner Zeitung, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, New Europe, Radio Erena, Radio France International, Radio RaBe (Bern), Russia Today, SBS Radio Australia, Swiss Radio and Television, The Guardian, Tages-Anzeiger, Tribune de Genève, TRT TV, Zofinger Tagblatt, Voice of America. Further information is available from his personal website.
Email: harryverhoeven33@gmail.com
Dr Harry Verhoeven is the Convenor of the Oxford University China-Africa Network, an Associate Member of the Department of Politics & International Relations at the University of Oxford and a Senior Adviser to the European Institute of Peace. Prof Verhoeven completed a doctorate at the University of Oxford, where he subsequently was a postdoctoral fellow and a Junior Research Fellow. He is the author and editor of five books and deeply invested in the human rights of individuals and communities in the countries where he works.
Senior Lecturer, Deptartment of Development Studies
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London, UK
Email: lh4@soas.ac.uk
Dr Hammond has conducted extensive research in areas of forced migration, diasporas, food security, and conflict. She has worked in the Horn of Africa – particularly Ethiopia and Somalia/Somaliland – for the past eighteen years, and has done consultancy for a wide range of development and humanitarian organizations, including UNDP, USAID, DfID, Oxfam, Medécins Sans Frontières, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the British Red Cross and the World Food Programme. She is a member of the Independent Advisory Group on Country Information (IAGCI). She is also the author of This Place Will Become Home: Refugee Repatriation to Ethiopia (Cornell University Press: 2004) and several other book and journal articles.
Email: lyoung@prorightsconsulting.com
Laura is a US-trained human rights lawyer based in Nairobi, Kenya who works across sub-Saharan Africa as a consultant on governance and human rights for USAID, the UN, governments, and international NGOs. Laura has published numerous articles and reports focused on conflict dynamics, gender, minority rights, transitional justice, migration, health, and other human rights issues in the African context. Laura has provided expert input for immigration and asylum cases in both the US and UK, focused on LGBT, FGM/C, domestic violence, trafficking, access to health services (including mental health and HIV), ex-combatants, ethnic minorities, disability access, police protection, and other key issues.
Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, LMU Munich
Email: magnus.treiber@ethnologie.lmu.de
Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ethiopian and Eritrean Migrants in Sudan.
Prof Dr Treiber is an anthropologist and teaches at Munich University, Germany. He has a regional focus on the Horn of Africa and can provide country of origin information for Eritrea, Ethiopia and Eritrean and Ethiopian migrants in the Sudan.
Independent of any political organisation or government, Radio Erena offers news, cultural programmes, music and entertainment. The blogsite provides articles containing firsthand reports of the situation in Eritrea and Ethiopia which may be considered useful in the gathering of country of origin information. A network of contributors based in the United States, Italy, Britain and the Netherlands is providing the Paris-based staff with Tigrinya-language programmes that are broadcast via Arabsat’s Badr-6 satellite. Eritreans can tune into Radio Erena on the 11,785 Mhz frequency with vertical polarisation (SR 27500, FEC 3/4).
Associate Professor, Dept. Anthropology
Cleveland State University
Email: r.reminick@csuohio.edu
Dr Ron Reminick is a psychological anthropologist with interpretive skills of a general order.
Email: samuelayele90@gmail.com
Dr Samuel A Bekalo has conducted research and published widely on Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan. He has lived and worked in the region and regularly visits the area since the 1960s. He has written over 100 expert and documentation authentication reports on these countries. His scholarly reports are based on first-hand experience and benefit from his knowledge of Amharic, Oromo, Arabic, Tigrinya, and Kiswahili. In recent years, Dr Bekalo has worked as a Research Fellow at the International School of Education of the University of Leeds (UK), where he was involved in the capacity building project North-South Higher Education Institutions Link programme for Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan.
COI Resources
The following sections contain documents that can be consulted when looking for country of origin information.
Country of Origin Information Report: Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting in Ethiopia
Female genital mutilation (FGM) is widespread in Ethiopia. Overall, 65 % of girls and women aged 15 to 49 years have undergone FGM. However, regional differences regarding prevalence, type of circumcision, and age of cutting are significant. The prevalence is highest in the Somali region, and lowest in Tigray. In recent years, prevalence has decreased and attitudes towards FGM have
become more negative in most regions. However, female genital mutilation is still considered by many groups in Ethiopia to be a culturally significant practice. Failing to circumcise girls might lead to social marginalization and exclusion in
some parts of Ethiopia.
Ethiopia: An update on the security and human rights situation since February 2022
This brief report is part of a series on the development of the human rights, political and security situation
in Ethiopia. So far, the following reports have been published: Ethiopia: Political opposition parties – recent
developments (March 2021) and Etiopien: Sikkerhedssituationen (February 2022). As such, this report seeks
to bring forward updated information on the human rights, political and security situation in Ethiopia with
focus on the conflict in Northern Ethiopia and the unrest in Oromo region.
This Country of Origin Information Report (COI Report) has been produced by Research Development and Statistics (RDS), Home Office, for use by officials involved in the asylum/human rights determination process. The Report provides general background information about the issues most commonly raised in asylum/human rights claims made in the United Kingdom. The main
body of the report includes information available up to 31 January 2007. The ‘latest news’ section contains further brief information on events and reports accessed from 1 February 2007 to 14 February 2007.
The humanitarian response in Ethiopia further requires scale-up considering the needs highlighted in the 2023 Humanitarian
Response Plan (HRP) to respond to the different humanitarian crises the people in Ethiopia are enduring. As the Northern
Ethiopian region has become more accessible following the signing of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (COHA) in
November 2022, relief beneficiaries in Tigray, Amhara and Afar continue to receive assistance, although not at the required
scale. Level of interventions, for 9.4 million food insecure people in need, are contingent upon differing operational
challenges, including lack of proper infrastructure in areas severely damaged by the conflict and lack of counterparts in
remote areas to coordinate the response, entailing that assistance is not reaching everyone and where it is needed the
most. Levels of food insecurity in Northern Ethiopia, as well as consecutive shocks in the drought affected areas, are having
detrimental consequences leading to health risks from high malnutrition rates and disease outbreaks, especially in areas
where access to health and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services is minimal.
Ethiopia Legal Assistance
Find organisations offering legal and other types of assistance to refugees in Ethiopia.
Ethiopia LGBTQI+ Resources
Find organisations working for refugee LGBTQI+ rights in Ethiopia.
We are always looking to expand the resources on our platform. If you know about relevant experts, or you are aware of organisations and/or resources to include in our directories, please get in touch.
Last updated January 2024