Gutema Adem Assistant^1,, Idris Ebrahim², Temam Kedir³

The objectives of this article is to provide an overall assessment of how globalization, has crushed Ethiopian women. More, specifically, the paper attempts to explore and touch how the globalization has impacted on: Gender equality, Feminization poverty, Feminization of migration, and exacerbate Divorce in Ethiopia. It is fact that it should be impossible for globalization to have a neutral impact on women, i.e. be equally positive or negative, when: established conditions are biased against women; policy-making institutions do not conduct policy monitoring and evaluations and mistreat the gendered outcomes of globalization; and growth is dependent upon women’s unpaid reproductive and productive role. Thus, globalization has gender discriminating effects because of gender-differentiated initial conditions which discriminate against women. The fundamental reasons for gender-biased effects of globalization in developing countries in general and in Ethiopia in particular are: the discriminatory gender ideologies that result in differential roles for women and men in the productive and reproductive spheres. The sexual division of labour disadvantage women in a double sense: first, through their inferior position in the labour market and, secondly, through their role in the care economy and the reproductive responsibilities ascribed to their gender role. Both positions limit women’s access to resources, increase their vulnerability to feminization of poverty, migration and consequently increase the risks associated with globalization. Poverty is a critical factor contributing to child marriage, and divorce. Thus, Poverty drives Ethiopian women and children into divorce, commercial sex and streets in the major cities of the countries, which make them vulnerable to sexual exploitation, abuse and rape. As early marriage is rampant in the rural areas of Ethiopia, those escaping this type of marriage, or those simply escaping rural poverty, migrate to towns and cities or abroad where they will either become maidservants or join the commercial sex industry.

globalization, women, feminization, migration and poverty