19 November 2025
By Girma Gadisa Tufa from the African Youth for Transitional Justice Platform (AY4TJ)
For too long, Ethiopia’s youth have been marginalised and kept at the margins of decision-making processes, and their specific needs have been overlooked in policies and practices. They are often entangled in intersecting cycles of violence and ethnic conflict, enduring consequential socio-economic burdens. Youth have been at the forefront of movements that paved the way for political transitions in Ethiopia—yet they are often excluded from institutional arrangements and decision-making spaces afterwards.
The legacy of past repression continues to shape youth political participation, which in many ways mirrors the broader public’s cautious attitude toward political involvement. The prevailing fear of political engagement is aptly captured in the common saying, “ፖለቲካና ኮረንቲን በሩቁ,” loosely translated as “politics and electricity should be kept at bay.” The sentiment is that just like electric shocks, political participation can paralyse or even cause death, and hence people should distance themselves from involvement in politics. This sentiment displays a political culture rooted in the rights violations that met those who dared to actively seek to challenge undemocratic practices.
In this policy brief, “Centring the periphery: Towards youth-sensitive reparations in Transitional Justice in Ethiopia”, I examine Ethiopia’s past and ongoing transitional justice efforts from a reparations perspective, focusing on youth and recommend measures needed to make reparations youth-sensitive. Even though youth are among the vulnerable groups disproportionately affected by conflicts and human rights violations, their priorities were not given due attention in Ethiopia’s previous efforts to right past wrongs through transitional justice.
Post-1991 transitional justice largely focused on criminal accountability, with little attention to reparations, failing to adequately address the rights violations youth suffered under the Derg regime. The adoption of Ethiopia’s Transitional Justice Policy (TJPE) offers yet another opportunity to implement comprehensive transitional justice, including youth-sensitive reparations. Nonetheless, the TJPE does not explicitly recognise youth among vulnerable groups, and it is imperative to rectify this gap at the implementation stage.
In this brief, I argue that, as envisioned by the African Union Transitional Justice Policy, Ethiopia’s reparations programmes should be designed and implemented in a restorative and transformative way. Doing so requires addressing past harms while also disabling the conditions that allowed violence and creating an environment that fosters social cohesion.
Most importantly, reparations should also be tailored to youth needs and priorities as broad reparations programmes risk overlooking youth needs, perpetuating intergenerational disadvantage. Reparations indifferent to youth needs are neither comprehensive nor inclusive.
The policy brief proposes the establishment of a youth advisory group made up of a representative cross-section of society as part of efforts to guarantee meaningful youth participation in TJ processes. It further recommends that reparations programmes are grounded in the diverse needs and expectations of victims, communities, and youth, guaranteeing regional and gender inclusivity. Furthermore, the policy brief calls for meaningful youth participation and representation in transitional justice processes and their active advocacy to ensure youth-sensitive and transformative reparations. It also emphasises the role of civil society organisations in awareness raising and civic engagement, in empowering youth and victim associations and in collaborating with the government to support effective implementation of reparations programmes.
The core message of this policy brief is that youth-sensitive reparations are not just moral imperatives but legal obligations; not charity, but justice.
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This brief is the fourth in a five-part youth-led series, ‘Legacy’, exploring the linkages between historical injustices, their enduring impacts in different African contexts, and the insufficiency of efforts to address these atrocities. Find out more.