The Ethiopian government has been ordered to pay $150,000 to a girl who said she was raped, abducted and forced to agree to marriage at the age of 13, in a landmark ruling activists hope will deter an outlawed, traditional form of child marriage. Woineshet Zebene Negash, who said she was raped in 2001, filed a complaint with the Gambia-based African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in 2007 after Ethiopia’s court overturned the conviction of her perpetrator.
“It is a practice that draws stark parallels with a proverbial ancient past when a man would hunt down the female of his choice, slug her over the head with a club, drag her by the hair to his dwelling, rape her and emerge triumphantly beating his chest,” the court said in a ruling released this week.
Ethiopia must pay reparations to Woineshet, the court said, because it failed to protect her or provide her with justice. Child marriage is a major problem in Ethiopia, where one in two girls are brides by the age of 18, according to government data. Abusive practices include marriage by abduction — as in Woineshet’s case — and forced unions between cousins.
Families often agree for girls to marry their rapists because of the shame that they have lost their virginity.
“The disposability of girls in Ethiopia and around the world needs to end,” Faiza Mohamed, Africa director of the rights group Equality Now, which represented Woineshet in court, said in a statement. We can only hope that the message this unprecedented ruling sends will have a ripple effect at all levels of society.”
A spokesman for the Ethiopian government declined to comment on the case on Friday.