Behind the veil
The perpetuation of illegal child marriage as a business transaction in rural Ethiopia.
by BRIANNA SOUKUP| Photojournalist
Young men bearing large sticks clustered noisily at the center of their village, dancing and chanting in their native tongue. Music from drums and trumpets could be heard throughout the village. On this day they were celebrating two weddings. The brides, however, weren’t to be found amongst the celebration. Instead they sat separated, between armed guards, silent and hooded by linen veils.
The veils are pulled back revealing low eyes. Yemikur was nine years old. Tigiste was 12 years old. It was their wedding day. That day Yemikur would marry a 15-year-old boy and Tigiste would marry that boy’s 21-year-old brother. In the Amhara region of northern Ethiopia, weddings are a 10-day celebration. But for the brides, celebrating isn’t allowed in the culture. During their wedding, brides are supposed to remain quite and shy; they rarely speak, and usually remain hidden under their shawls. In this part of Ethiopia, marriage is as much a business transaction between the parents as it is a cultural or family event.
The majority of the wedding feast spilled into the middle of the village under a tent or tarp. The first few days of the wedding the brides ate and slept there, unable to leave. Later, while dancing and singing, the best men carried the brides into their new husbands’ homes, officially welcoming them into their new families. Although child marriage is illegal in Ethiopia, many rural areas like this one in Amhara choose cultural traditions over national law to marry off girls as young as eight or nine.
After the wedding Yemikur returned home to her parents — at nine years old she was not considered old enough to live with her husband or begin her life as a wife or as a mother. Tigiste, at 12 years old, left her family behind to move in with her husband two months after the end of the 10-day ceremony. Her husband’s family believed she was old enough to be a woman, old enough to be a mother.
Inside another Amhara home, a young woman crouched to her worn, dirt floor, washing her porcelain coffee cups. Pouring a soapy mixture from one cup to another, she washed them crudely with her fingers. She stacked the cups and rinsed them with the rusty tin can she used to carry water. Her name is Melashiw. She was 14 years old, and she had been married twice.
“I sweep the house, I fetch water, I bake, I cook and I sew,” Melashiw said.
Melashiw dropped out of school after third grade. Since then she’s spent her days as a homemaker and wife. She said her first marriage ended because her husband’s stepmother disliked her. Her husband would beat her when his mother would tell him that she was lazy. When Melashiw told her family about the abuse they rescued her from the home.
After the divorce Melashiw moved in with her sister. She didn’t want to get married again, but she also didn’t want to be a burden to her sister’s family, so she married her brother-in-law’s cousin, Shambell. Melashiw and Shambell have been together for more than two years. And although they said they were happy together, their marriage wasn’t economically viable because they didn’t have a farm of their own.
“..They will probably just come here and separate us soon.”
“We have asked for land from Shambell’s family before and they said no,” Melashiw said, “so they will probably just come here and separate us soon.”
Without any land to sustain them, Melashiw’s family may force the couple to divorce.
Melashiw said part of her would want to run away if her family makes her divorce Shambell. Running away is common for young brides, who then find themselves broke and alone. Many of them become prostitutes in the big cities. Melashiw doesn’t want that life for herself, but she also doesn’t know what will happen if her family takes her away.
“We love each other very much, but just our love is not enough.”
“I don’t want to leave my husband, but he doesn’t have land, so what can we do?” Melashiw said. “We love each other very much, but just our love is not enough.”
The International Center for Research on Women reports that the Amhara region has one of the world’s highest rates of child marriage — 74 percent of young adult women are married before the age of 18. Not many of these child marriages, however, are successful in terms of economics or happiness. Consequentially, Amhara has one of the highest divorce rates in the world.
Early marriage is deeply rooted in rural tradition in Ethiopia, and is perpetuated by both poverty and a lack of education and opportunity. Therefore child marriage will remain the standard, with the Unites Nations estimating there will be 142 million new child brides worldwide by 2020.•
Edited and designed by Rachel Gmach.
