海角大神

Two decades ago, when a young lawyer named Meaza Ashenafi began defending women who had been sexually harassed, she quickly stumbled into a problem.

Not only was sexual harassment not accepted as a crime in Ethiopia. Amharic, the country鈥檚 official language, didn鈥檛 even have a way to express it.聽

鈥淲e had to improvise. We literally had to create the word,鈥� says Ms. Ashenafi of herself and her colleagues at the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association, which she founded in the mid-1990s to provide defense to women who couldn鈥檛 afford it.

鈥�Wesibawi tinkosa,鈥� she began declaring, testing the new term鈥檚 heft. Sexual harassment.

It stuck. And since then, that has been Ms. Ashenafi鈥檚 M.O. If the Ethiopia she wanted to live in didn鈥檛 exist, she created it 鈥� or tried to. As a young lawyer, she wrote human rights protections into the country鈥檚 new constitution. As a legal activist, she fought for a slate of laws to protect Ethiopian women from men in their lives. As a civil society leader, she started a bank dedicated to getting women into the formal financial system.

It wasn鈥檛 exactly the kind of activism that made Ms. Ashenafi many friends in Ethiopia鈥檚 authoritarian one-party government, which has ruled the country since the early 1990s.

So when the country鈥檚 new reformist prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, announced last November that he was nominating Ms. Ashenafi to be the first female chief justice of Ethiopia鈥檚 Supreme Court, the reaction could best be described as a nationwide gasp.

鈥淚 screamed at the TV,鈥� says Zeynab Abdille, a women鈥檚 rights activist in Jijiga, a city in Ethiopia鈥檚 Somali region. 鈥淭his wasn鈥檛 just a woman he was appointing; it was an extremely outspoken woman. Who could expect that?鈥�

Since Mr. Abiy came to power last April, indeed, he has scrambled many expectations. His government has freed up to 40,000 political prisoners, according to Amnesty International, and reopened the long-closed border with Eritrea. He unbanned opposition groups and promised them a free election in 2020.

Amid that raft of change, the appointments of Ms. Ashenafi and several other women to prominent government positions have been celebrated, seen as a kind of shorthand for the prime minister鈥檚 commitment to transform the society around him.

In many ways, the change is striking to behold. For the first time in Ethiopian history, half the national government ministries here are headed by women. There is a female president (a largely ceremonial post here) and a female head of the electoral commission, who also happens to be a prominent opposition figure who spent nearly a decade in exile. And then there is Ms. Ashenafi, a perpetual rabble-rouser who says she warned the prime minister鈥檚 office, 鈥淵ou might not be happy with the decisions that I make in this position.鈥�

鈥淚 told them, if they want business as usual, I鈥檓 not the right person for this job,鈥� she adds.聽

But now, many wonder if all these appointments actually represent the start of a bigger transformation for Ethiopia鈥檚 women. Or is it a case, as many activists here worry, of a new government using female leadership to show the world how progressive and enlightened they are, while avoiding bigger problems that make their society so unequal to begin with?聽

鈥淭hese women can create space for other women. And even their presence itself ... it expands your imagination of what鈥檚 possible,鈥� says Kamlaknesh Yasin, communications manager for Setaweet, a feminist organization based in Addis Ababa. But at the same time, she worries from the outside looking in, it will seem the battle is won. 鈥淧eople can say, 鈥榊ou got your representation. What more do you want?鈥欌��

***听

For women like Ms. Yasin and Ms. Ashenafi, that question isn鈥檛 rhetorical.

They want a lot more. They want to live in a society where half of women aren鈥檛 victims of domestic violence. They want a country where there aren鈥檛 100 boys for every 77 girls in secondary school. A place where men don鈥檛 vastly out-earn women.

鈥淭he problem in our society is that we still don鈥檛 see women鈥檚 rights as urgent human rights,鈥� says Hilina Berhanu Degefa, a feminist activist and co-founder of a university campus movement for women鈥檚 rights called the Yellow Movement. 鈥淲e see them as a luxury item that we can get around to when there is time.鈥�

In part, the feeling that women鈥檚 rights aren鈥檛 an urgent fight anymore is because of Meaza 鈥� as Ms. Ashenafi is affectionately known to many Ethiopians.

As a legal adviser to the committee that wrote Ethiopia鈥檚 Constitution in the early 1990s, and later as a lawyer fighting for female victims of domestic and sexual violence, inheritance disputes, and custody battles, Ms. Ashenafi helped enshrine in law many protections for the country鈥檚 women.

But the knock-on effect of that is to make their challenges seem a thing of the past.

鈥淪o now the Ethiopian government has put the rights of women into the law, but it is up to us to make sure they happen on the level of our own lives,鈥� says Ms. Abdille, in Jijiga, who heads an organization she founded called the Mother and Child Development Organization.听鈥�We are not finished. No one gave us the rights we have. What we have is what we have taken for ourselves.鈥�

Ms. Abdille, indeed, has spent much of the past 50 years taking things that were never meant to be hers: An education. A career.

鈥淲hen I was younger, people used to say to my husband, 鈥楾his woman of yours talks too much about women鈥檚 rights. She wants to get rid of our culture. You must keep her at home,鈥欌�� she says 鈥撀爐hough he didn鈥檛 listen.

So when she heard about Ms. Ashenafi鈥檚 appointment to the court, she was thrilled.聽

鈥淭his is a woman who feels our problems, because she has lived them,鈥� she says.

But Jijiga, a conservative city near the Somali border, is a long way from the Supreme Court in Addis, geographically and metaphorically. All day, Ms. Abdille鈥檚 rose-colored iPhone buzzes with messages from people who still need her help, female Supreme Court president or not 鈥� a mother fighting her daughter鈥檚 circumsizer in court, or a woman whose husband abandoned the family when their crops failed.

鈥淟isten, Abiy has only been here one year,鈥� she says, referring to the new prime minister. 鈥淭he problems of women, they have been here thousands of years. You can鈥檛 fix that in a year.鈥�

Even in Addis, activists say, the appointment of Ms. Ashenafi and other prominent women has so far been more symbolically valuable than practically useful to their work. Many have wished she would speak up about prominent cases of gender-based violence in the city聽鈥� most prominently a young woman named Meaza Kassa, who died after a male colleague attacked her. But Ms. Ashenafi鈥檚 position prevents her from commenting openly on particular investigations, she says.

Meanwhile, she also has, quite simply, a lot to do in her day job. The court system she inherited has been hobbled by decades of underresourcing and political interference.

鈥淭rust in our justice system is hugely eroded,鈥� says Selome Tadesse, a close friend of Ms. Ashenafi鈥檚, a former government spokesperson, and the first woman to head the Ethiopian Radio and Television Agency.聽

When the job gets difficult, Ms. Ashenafi says, she thinks of the reason she is here. It seems the culmination of a life of rebellion 鈥� another way of changing the system, this time from the inside.听鈥淵es, a judge will always be expected to interpret the law impartially, but at the end of the day, we should have our eye on justice. If we don鈥檛 deliver that, we fail,鈥� she says.

Before she took the job, she asked friends and her husband, a scientist at Addis Ababa University, what they thought. It wasn鈥檛 a foregone conclusion, after all, that a longtime activist, a thorn in the side of authority, would want a government post. But the answers that came back were resounding.

鈥淚 told her, 鈥榊ou鈥檙e taking this job at a point of deep uncertainty for this country, and actually that鈥檚 the best time because you can shape what comes next,鈥欌�� says Ms. Tadesse. 鈥淭he door is cracked open now. We have to pull it open the rest of the way.鈥�