16-Year Old South Sudan Child Bride Auctioned Off On Facebook

An auction that was held on Facebook payment for a 16-year-old girl's hand in marriage has activists sounding the alarm and comparing the social media site to "latter-day slave markets."

The post was taken down as soon as the social media company became aware of it, according to CNN, but that's wasn't until the girl was already married. 

According to the children's rights organization, Plan International, the girl was bid on by five different men, including some officials who are high-ranking members of the South Sudanese government. 

"This barbaric use of technology is reminiscent of latter-day slave markets. That a girl could be sold for marriage on the world’s biggest social networking site in this day and age is beyond belief," said George Otim, Country Director of Plan International South Sudan. 

"While it is common for dowries to be used in marriages in South Sudanese culture, nothing can excuse the way this girl – who is still a child – has been treated as nothing more than an object, sold off to the bidder prepared to offer the most money and goods."

The father reportedly received 500 cows, three cars, and $10,000 in exchange for his daughter, and activists worry that the success of the auction on Facebook could lead other families to try and use social media to increase the payments they might receive. 

Facebook said the auction was started by the family in South Sudan on Oct. 25, and that the company removed the post fifteen days later on Nov. 9. 

"Any form of human trafficking -- whether posts, pages, ads or groups is not allowed on Facebook. We removed the post and permanently disabled the account belonging to the person who posted this to Facebook," a company spokesperson said in a statement.

"We're always improving the methods we use to identify content that breaks our policies, including doubling our safety and security team to more than 30,000 and investing in technology," the spokesperson added.

Photo: Getty Images


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