17 year old Sudanese girl sold to the highest bidder:

Five hundred cows, two luxury cars, $10,000, two bikes, a boat and a few cell phones made up the final price in a heated bidding war for a child bride in South Sudan that went viral after the auction was pointed out on Facebook. It is the largest dowry ever paid in the civil war-torn country, the government said.

The highest bidder was a man three times the 17-year-old’s age. At least four other men in Eastern Lakes state competed, said Philips Anyang Ngong, a human rights lawyer who tried to stop the bidding last month. Among the bidders was the state’s deputy governor.

“She has been reduced to a mere commodity,” Ngong told The Associated Press, calling it “the biggest test of child abuse, trafficking and auctioning of a human being.” Everyone involved should be held accountable, he said.

But he’s a human rights lawyer – he has a conflict of interest. His interest in protecting human rights is in conflict with the girl’s family’s desire for money and goodies, and the winner’s desire to fuck her. The lawyer is what Trump stupidly calls “conflicted,” so he should have no say in the matter. They should get someone who has no interest in human rights to take over from Ngong.

Earlier this month, Nyalong became the man’s ninth wife. Photos posted on Facebook show her sitting beside the groom, wearing a lavish dress and staring despondently at the floor. The AP is using only her first name to protect her identity.

On Facebook, please note. Facebook suspends people for wrongthink on trans dogma, it “investigates” George Soros for criticizing Facebook, but selling female human beings is copacetic.

The bidding war has caused local and international outrage. It took several days for Facebook to remove the post that first pointed out the auction, and after it was taken down other posts “glorifying” the situation remained, George Otim, country director for Plan International South Sudan, told the AP.

Facebook ignored a request for comment.

While South Sudan’s government condemns the practice of child marriage it says it can’t regulate communities’ cultural norms, especially in remote areas.

“You can’t call it bidding as if it was an auction. It’s not bidding. If you see it with European eyes you’ll call it an auction,” government spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny told the AP. “You have to see it with an African eye, as it’s a tradition that goes back thousands of years. There’s no word for it in English.”

That’s an interesting point, because it can cut either way. It’s not surprising to learn that the people who practice it don’t call it by a pejorative (in context) name, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the name doesn’t fit. Naming is always contested.

Some local lawmakers and activists disagree. In a statement released this week, the National Alliance for Women Lawyers in South Sudan called upon officials to comply with the government’s plan to end child marriage by 2030. Ending the practice includes putting a stop to the auctioning of girls.

South Sudan’s anti-human trafficking chief called the case reminiscent of others he has seen across the country, in which girls are forced or tricked into marriage after being told they are going to live with relatives and go to school instead.

As those girls in Michigan were tricked into genital mutilation after being told they were going for a fun trip to the city. Funny how it’s always the girls, isn’t it…