The youngest ever political prisoner, (age 3), went to jail in Ethiopia

Her mother Ms. Nigist Wendifraw is an activist and member of the popular opposition Blue Party. The Ethiopian government violates the international law in the treatment of children in Prison, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child which Ethiopia has ratified in 1993.

Ill-treatment of children in the Ethiopian detention system appears to be systematic and institutionalized. The best interests of the child are to be used as the basis for decisions to allow children to stay with the mothers, and children in prison with their mothers shall never be treated as prisoners, and the environment for the children’s upbringing is to“be as close as possible to that of a child outside prison.” According to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The prison conditions in Ethiopia are described as “horror and “hell on earth” by previous political prisoners, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.