Lions Guard Beaten 12 Year Old Girl

I read this yesterday and thought - how cool! Seeing how these lions are looked at with such respect, maybe it will help these girls indirectly. Or at the very least it puts this issue of kidnapping young girls in the international news - hopefully in some sort of way, this story will help these girls.

Too bad they didn't follow those men, and rip the scumbags limb from limb.

70% of the marriages in Ethiopia are "by abduction"?!

http://www.feminist.com/violence/spot/ethiop.html


Spotlight on: Violence Against Girls in Ethiopia
Marriage by Abduction and Rape

In some regions of Ethiopia, abduction and rape is a cultural practice used to take a girl as wife by force. Typically, the girl is abducted by a group of young men, and then raped by the man who wants to marry her-either someone she knows, or a total stranger. Elders from the man's village then ask the family of the girl to agree to the marriage; the family often consents because a girl who has lost her virginity would be socially unacceptable for marriage to another man. Sometimes the abductor keeps the girl in a hiding place until she is pregnant, at which time the family again feels it has no option but to agree to the marriage.

It may seem unlikely a victim would willingly marry the perpetrator of her abduction and rape. However, with social and cultural pressure from families and the community, as well as threats from the offender, the girl will often "consent" to marry her perpetrator.

Both abduction and rape are criminal offences under Ethiopian law, but if marriage is subsequently agreed, the husband is exempt from criminal responsibility for his crimes.

Changing the law to adequately address the injustice that abducted and raped girls face is essential to the realization of the fundamental right to equality in Ethiopia. To find out more about what Equality Now is doing to campaign for changes in the law to protect the rights of women and bring perpetrators of abduction, rape and forced marriage to justice, and to find out what you can do, click here
For more information on our campaigns to end violence against women around the world, go to www.equalitynow.org, or email us at [email protected]





Different view



http://www.phishare.org/documents/PopCouncil/2474/




http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/ethiopia_early_marriage.html

In a strange way these lions did more than just save this one girl. By this news report, it could potentially cause more pressure to the Ethiopian government to change it's laws.

This is such an amazing story and I love Linkat's take on it - perhaps superstition that the lions don't want this to happen will make kidnappers think twice.

What an absolutely brutal custom. An interesting argument to use for those who suggest that marriage as existed as some holy thing for thousands of years blah blah blah.

Don't you suppose when the kidnappers ran off leaving the girl behind that they probably expected her to be eaten by the lions? Brutes.

Animals are so magnificent. I'm reminded of Will Roger's saying "The more I see of man, the more I like dogs."

I like this idea!