Entirely familiar, nothing new, but heartbreaking all the same. Multiply by X million every year.
“I wanted to get an education but my parents were determined to marry me off,” says Himanot Yehewala, an Ethiopian girl who was married five years ago at the age of 13.
“I tried to run away but my mother said she would kill herself if I did not marry him.”
That’s all – just that. She wanted to get an education, but she couldn’t; she had to stop getting an education and be a premature adult, instead. Her chance of a more interesting and useful life was over, at age 13. Multiply by X million every year.
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5 responses to “A simple story”
Does anyone with a bit of education know what the best way to deal with these problems are? Are there any strategies that have worked in specific countries/regions?
Sad to say, but that’s the way it is in many parts of the world.
If the state and federal governments continue to reduce their support of education, that could happen here as well.
Then there is the opposite to consider: People who are fortunate to have a decent or even privileged education and all the luxuries of our western lifestyle, only to become ‘spoiled’ and expect everything in life to be free and handed to them for nothing, or else it’s unfair. Or worse, to exist in such a privilege ‘bubble’ where people with nothing and no opportunity in life simply don’t exist.
Lars, a combination of things, I think – urbanization, development, modernization, laws, NGOs, education, prosperity…
Egbert: OK, but how is that relevant? And are there actually a lot of people who expect “everything in life to be free”?