"I don't see kidnappers as bad people and never will"
Sena Tamene - October 2nd, 2023
I am from Ethiopia, a country in East Africa. I lived there all my life until the age of 7. Most of my childhood was spent behind the gas station, named Total. I grew up eating beso and going to the Tsion Cafe with my mom and grandma. On Sundays we went to the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and after ate our dirkosh firfir with Betoch, an Ethiopian Comedy TV show playing in the background. I grew up with my cousins who are all grown up now. Total is still there, but there are a bunch of other buildings they put up next to it. The Medhanialem Church hasn’t changed and still stands today. The places from my childhood remain and have not changed. But, what changed, or maybe what I didn’t even notice in Ethiopia was human rights or maybe the lack of it. I was never exposed to all these problems, maybe because of my mom and how much she did to protect her baby girl from the ugliness of the world or maybe because my country’s problems had not reached the severity for me to realize at such a young age.
I went to Ethiopia this summer. This time as a 16 year old and no it wasn’t my first time going back. I went back 4 years ago as a 12-year-old. But, now I could see all the problems of the place which I’d always longed for and the place which brought me so much comfort. I knew I was privileged to be living in a country like the US and be given the opportunity to dream as much as I wanted to and achieve everything I wanted to. But, I never understood the degree of my privilege. My trip to Ethiopia has opened my eyes to the economic situation in Ethiopia.
The economy in Ethiopia is evidence of the lack of human rights. The rich in Ethiopia buy the land of the poor from the government. The rich then build factories or other types of buildings, displacing the poor. The poor never get compensated by the rich or the government for the worth of their land and become homeless since they “are no longer able to farm or access education, healthcare, and other basic services”( The Guardian). They have nothing left except for their hands to beg. The process of the government taking land away is referred to as “land grabbing”. Land grabbing in Ethiopia continues to severly disrupt local communities’ livelihoods.
I had never felt as helpless as I did this summer when I watched children begging me. Little boys and girls who are capable of achieving so much but left no choice but to wrap their tiny fingers around my legs and beg me, another passerby for money.
It wasn’t only money they begged for, they begged for anything…It was a rainy day and I had stayed overnight at my aunt’s house. As I left her car to board a taxi, I held a big bag filled with clothes. A big group of children came running up to me and started begging to have my clothes. Now, these kids were mostly boys and young about ages 4-8, but they wanted MY clothes-the clothes of a 16-year-old girl. This is how desperate the children of Ethiopia are just to get food in their mouths and clothes on their backs. I tried to explain to them and even opened my bag to show them it was a girl's clothes and too big. “It is useless clothes,” I said. But, their cries for my belongings were unwavering. And as I boarded the taxi, I felt a lump in my throat which I could not ignore.
The lack of human rights has also caused safety problems. Currently, many people have been getting kidnapped by civilians who disguise themselves as soldiers. They take people from their families and force the family to pay high amounts of money for their release. These types of incidents have been happening for the past year and have been affecting many families.
Recently, a distant family member was taken hostage. The family had to pay 1,000,000 birr for his release. 1,000,000 birr is equal to 20 thousand dollars. This amount is too much for poor Ethiopian families to handle. But, they have no choice but to pay because if they don’t pay they are risking the life of their loved one. Many families, as my aunt put it, “ have to borrow money from others to pay this fine, essentially putting themselves in debt and falling deeper into poverty”.
Say what you will, but I don’t see the kidnappers as bad people and never will. In most cases, the kidnappers come from families that had their land taken away by the government. They lost all of their sources of income and place to live. Their only choice is to steal to not go hungry.
Sources Cited:
Smith, David. “Ethiopian talk of violent intimidation as their land is earmarked for foreign investors”. 14, April 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/14/ethiopia-villagisation-violence-land-grab Accessed 1, October 2023.