Tales of a child bride: 'My father sold me for 12 cows'

[Bettyboo]

Tales of a child bride: 'My father sold me for 12 cows'
When she was 12, Grace was abducted and then raped and beaten every day for 11 months.
So common are the practices of abduction, rape and forced marriage of girls in northern Tanzania that a single word is used to encapsulate them all: kupura. It is a word used by people from the Sukuma tribe to describe the snatching of girls in broad daylight as they walk to school; a three-syllabled euphemism that downplays their long-term physical and sexual abuse.

And yet here in the region of Shinyanga, the practice of kupura is validated by the oft-recited motto of Sukuma men: alcohol, meat and vagina.

"This slogan is in their blood and a way of life," says Revocatus Itendelebanya. "These are the three things they feel entitled to as men."
...
Tales of a child bride: 'My father sold me for 12 cows' - News from Al Jazeera

[Munted]

northern Tanzania

That whole continent - land of savages.

[Pragmatic]

12 year old girls are married (village ceremony) in Thailand.

[wasabi]

Alcohol , meat and vagina.
The tribes motto.

What about the money I donated to Christian Aid to give them clean running water, to save the starving baby I saw in the charities Tele ad.

[patsycat]

It is terrible that this still goes on. And on and on.

And i thank the little star that i was born under.

[Pragmatic]

It gets worse.

Girl, aged SIX, 'is forced to marry 55 year old man in exchange for a goat'



The footage shows the father of the child being attacked by local women as police came to arrest him for selling his daughter







A 55-year-old man has been arrested after he allegedly wed a girl who was just six years old - in return for a goat.
Seyed Abdolkarim was taken in by officers after police were told he had married the child, named only as Gharibgol, in a religious ceremony.
The child was reportedly sold by her father who was also arrested by police after they claimed he exchanged her for the goat, along with rice, tea, sugar, and cooking oil.
He said he had been struggling to look after the family, and that exchanging his daughter meant he gained food and lost a mouth to feed.

Girl, aged SIX, 'is forced to marry 55 year old man in exchange for a goat' - Mirror Online

[ENT]

People over there do have strange beliefs and customs. Some might think the goat or the girl was a gift from a beneficent sky fairy.

[patsycat]

Just so wrong in all ways of wrong.

And when you think that every minute of every hour of every day there is a little girl out there being abused.

[klong toey]

I listened to a radio programmer last week bloody disgrace the guy has been arrested after the President of Malawi heard about the BBC report.


The man hired to have sex with children.




In some remote southern regions of Malawi, it's traditional for girls to be made to have sex with a paid sex worker known as a "hyena" once they reach puberty. The act is not seen by village elders as rape, but as a form of ritual "cleansing". However, as Ed Butler reports, it has the potential to be the opposite of cleansing - a way of spreading disease.
I meet Eric Aniva in the dusty yard of his three-room shack in Nsanje district in southern Malawi. Goats and chickens graze in the dirt outside. Wearing a grimy green shirt, and walking with a pronounced limp (he's been lame in one leg since birth, he says), he greets me enthusiastically. He seems to like the idea of media attention.

Aniva is by all accounts the pre-eminent "hyena" in this village. It's a traditional title given to a man hired by communities in several remote parts of southern Malawi to provide what's called sexual "cleansing". If a man dies, for example, his wife is required by tradition to sleep with Aniva before she can bury him. If a woman has an abortion, again sexual cleansing is required.
And most shockingly, here in Nsanje, teenage girls, after their first menstruation, are made to have sex over a three-day period, to mark their passage from childhood to womanhood. If the girls refuse, it's believed, disease or some fatal misfortune could befall their families or the village as a whole.
"Most of those I have slept with are girls, school-going girls," Aniva tells me.
"Some girls are just 12 or 13 years old, but I prefer them older. All these girls find pleasure in having me as their hyena. They actually are proud and tell other people that this man is a real man, he knows how to please a woman."

Despite his boasts, several girls I meet in a nearby village express aversion to the ordeal they've had to go through.
"There was nothing else I could have done. I had to do it for the sake of my parents," one girl, Maria, tells me. "If I'd refused, my family members could be attacked with diseases - even death - so I was scared."
They tell me that all their female friends were made to have sex with a hyena.

Aniva appears to be in his 40s (he's vague about his precise age) and currently has two wives who are well aware of his work. He claims to have slept with 104 women and girls - although as he said the same to a local newspaper in 2012, I sense that he long ago lost count. Aniva has five children that he knows about - he's not sure how many of the women and girls he's made pregnant.
He tells me he's one of 10 hyenas in this community, and that every village in Nsanje district has them. They are paid from $4 to $7 (£3 to £5) each time.

The man hired to have sex with children - BBC News

[klong toey]

And a few days later he was arrested.

Malawian 'hyena man' arrested for having sex with children

An HIV-positive Malawian man, who says he is paid to have sex with children as part of initiation rites, has been arrested on the president's orders.
Eric Aniva, a sex worker known in Malawi as a "hyena", was the subject of a BBC feature last week.
He told the BBC that he did not mention his HIV status to those who hire him.
President Peter Mutharika said the police should investigate and charge him over the cases of defilement he had seemingly confessed to.

The BBC's Ed Butler, who covered the story about Malawi's sexual "cleansing practices", says in some remote southern regions of the country it is traditional for girls to be made to have sex with a man after their first menstruation.
Some of the girls are as young as 12 years old, he reported.
What is known as a "hyena" in Malawi culture is usually a man who has sex with widows or married women who cannot fall pregnant.

Malawian 'hyena man' arrested for having sex with children - BBC News

[billy the kid]

that he did not mention his HIV status to those who hire him.

jees the world has surely gone mad.

didn't doctors know of the 'hyena man'.

[DrB0b]

What is the point of this thread?

[billy the kid]

how a President allowed on his turf
a mad-man to spread HIV to 12 yr ole girls in a cultural ceremony after blod clat ceremony.

And whether any are angered/ traumatised by such ceremonies
while others preach the wisdom of bagging it up to prevent HIV spreading.

[ENT]

What is the point of this thread?

Likely just to piss you off, ya backsliding paddy.

[jabir]

how a President allowed on his turf
a mad-man to spread HIV to 12 yr ole girls in a cultural ceremony after blod clat ceremony.

And whether any are angered/ traumatised by such ceremonies
while others preach the wisdom of bagging it up to prevent HIV spreading.

The HIV came out later, but the thread title suggests it is about wog culture/religion.

[BaitongBoy]

Alcohol , meat and vagina.
The tribes motto.

A loaf of bread, a jug of wine,
and thou...

Too much "meat" in the tribe's diet...

Sad lives for the girls...Maybe change is coming through "presidential intervention"...

[katie23]

What is the point of this thread? To make people aware of these things!

I know abt female genital mutilation, child brides, and other issues, but I didn't know abt this - that there are "hyenas" in villages paid to have sex with girls who just entered puberty. Like Patsy said, it's just so so wrong.

Just like albinos in Africa being hunted & mutilated for their body parts by witch doctors, bcos of the belief that it will bring good luck. A different matter, but also very wrong.

And like Patsy, I thank my lucky stars that I was born into a loving family & in my country. It may not be the best, but women are treated quite well.

We've had 2 women presidents. Yes they came from politically connected clans & they weren't the best, but that's more that can be said for other countries, including western ones.

[wasabi]

What is the point of this thread?

Likely just to piss you off, ya backsliding paddy.

Some posters on here relish roasting other posters for being more stupid and backward than savages , they like to defend blacks against reports like this.
Come on ,you can do better, tell us that we are worse than hyena man.

[ENT]

What is the point of this thread?

Likely just to piss you off, ya backsliding paddy.

Some posters on here relish roasting other posters for being more stupid and backward than savages , they like to defend blacks against reports like this.
Come on ,you can do better, tell us that we are worse than hyena man.

Daft idea. Why would I? My comment was a jibe at the Gob's much publicized sympathies for all things 'ethnic', such as similar heathen beliefs in the virtues of human exploitation.

[DrB0b]

What is the point of this thread?

Likely just to piss you off, ya backsliding paddy.

Some posters on here relish roasting other posters for being more stupid and backward than savages , they like to defend blacks against reports like this.
Come on ,you can do better, tell us that we are worse than hyena man.

Daft idea. Why would I? My comment was a jibe at the Gob's much publicized sympathies for all things 'ethnic', such as similar heathen beliefs in the virtues of human exploitation.

WTF you on about, Sanjay?

[Bettyboo]

What is the point of this thread?

To make people aware of these things!

Quite right, Katie; people become apathetic or are just unaware, but the reality of abuses towards women in Asia, Africa, ME, other, is pretty horrifying.

Bob, stick to the Pokemon threads if you find them more comfortable...

[thaimeme]

jees the world has surely gone mad.

Yet, most don't recognize the sectors that've really gone off - 'tis all goodness and light in their imaginations.

[Fondles]

what sort of cows were they ?

[Kurgen]

they all end up old cows, even the 12 year olds.

[billy the kid]

in their imaginations.

they say imagination is equal to intelligence but the way things are moving,
it is leading us to insanity and destruction.

Tho i like the song, Imagine.