Photo credit: change.org
Although underage marriage is illegal in South Sudan, is’s so commonplace that it hardly attracts significant attention.
The Guardian reports that the case of 14-year-old Athiak Dau Riak is an exception. Her case has gone viral, polarizing her family and the country.
Two men, Marial Garang Jil and Chol Marol Deng, two South Sudanese men in their 40s had been vying to marry Athiak, a girl who her mother says is 14. The men come from different Dinka clans, and they live abroad.
Athiak’s father, Dau Riak Magany, says his daughter is 19 and has consented to the marriage. The girl is in primary 8 year at school. The marriage negotiations began in March this year. It is the custom among the Dinka that there is a “marriage competition” in which several men vie for the hand of a marriageable girl.
The mother, Deborah Kuh Tach, is now in hiding for her safety as she opposes the marriage. She says she has proof that her daughter is 14.
The case might have resulted into a dispute among family members had photos and videos of gatherings were not posted online and quickly shared. The story went viral. Athiak was praised for her height and beauty, and as “the girl at the heart of a historic marriage competition” in publications across Africa.
When the ceremonial part of the wedding was concluded in June and she was given as wife to Chol Marol Deng, for a payment of 123 cattle, 120m South Sudanese pounds (about $44,000) in cash and a plot of land, she was dubbed “the most expensive bride in South Sudan” in TikTok videos that gained thousands of likes.
Her father said, “There is nothing wrong with this marriage.”
However, South Sudan’s 2008 Child Act prohibits early and forced marriage. According to Unicef, child marriage is “still a common practice” and “recent figures indicate that 52% of girls (in South Sudan) are married before they turn 18, with some girls being married off as young as 12 years old.”
An Edinburgh University-led report on “bride price” system in South Sudan says “customary courts often accept menstruation as the criteria for eligibility to marry” and early marriage is “a common practice …likely motivated by families’ ambitions to gain bride prices for their daughters as soon as possible.”
Globally, 122 million girls are married in childhood every year, according to Unicef. Across sub-Saharan Africa, more than a third of young women were married before the age of 18. Although child marriage is commonplace, Athiak’s case has gripped the country. People “campaigned” for their preferred suitor on social media. Others promoted the wedding as an affirmation of ‘Dinka culture and identity.” They rebuffed those who have criticized it as “the auctioning of a girl”.
The online activity caught the attention of a lawyer, Josephine Adhet Deng. She opened a case against Dau Riak Magany in June, alleging that he had allowed the wedding of a minor and calling for Athiak to be brought back from Kenya, where she was taken shortly after the agam ceremony.
Questions about the girl’s age were sparked by a Facebook post by her maternal uncle, Daniel Yach, a Canadian citizen, who described her as a minor. He said the proposed marriage is “a classic example of pedophilia”.
Aluel Atem, a South Sudanese feminist activist said, “She had to pick one of them. I don’t think there was an option for her to choose either of these two men.”
Athiak said, had the marriage process not started, she would have “preferred to study”.
