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> HIV / AIDS >
FGE / The Amazing Wedding > Bridal
Abduction
A headline from The Ethiopian
Herald, September 15, 1999 created a great deal
of positive publicity nationwide in response to this incident.
Aberrash was one of KMG’s brightest
young activists, a shy, 16-year-old student at Durame High
School. Then, as she
went to fetch water for her family, she was kidnapped by
an unwelcome suitor, repeatedly raped by him and his friends,
and kept imprisoned and hidden for three weeks
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Aberrash
courageously defied tradition and returned to school after
being rescued from her abductors, publicly refusing to
be cast aside as “damaged goods.” |
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Bridal abduction, the practice is called.
There are laws against it, but they are rarely enforced, and
bridal abduction is common. Typically, the girl is considered
“damaged goods” and will not be accepted back by
her family or her teacher even if she finds the will power
to ask. Therefore, her only future is with the man who abducted
her. Not in the case of Aberrash.
Facing great community skepticism, and thanks to training
programs conducted by KMG sensitizing prosecutors and police
to the illegality of the process, Aberrash was found and her
captor jailed. KMG Founder Boge Gebre was able to convince
her family and teacher to accept her back. This young woman
has defied tradition, returned to school and is becoming an
effective educator against these practices.
Her willingness to overcome her timidity and speak out to
other audiences have help resolve ten other incidents favorably
with the arrest of the captors and the successful return of
their victims into their homes.
“You all know what happened to me a year ago yesterday,”
Aberrash said in her first public statement before a mass
audience. “I want to tell today to my sisters, to never
accept the marriage you did not want because you are abducted.
Never lose your dream, and hope and never believe because
you are abducted that you are damaged goods.”
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