Mail & Guardian’s Metsehate Ayenekulu wrote in April 2019 that Ethiopia’s millions of child brides needed support systems that matched the scale of early marriage, not slogans alone.
The commentary followed young couples under pressure to prove fertility while education, health, and economic options stayed thin. Of an estimated 15 million child brides in Ethiopia, millions were younger than 15, a statistic that should shame any reform narrative that ignores girls’ lives.
Law on the books and practice in villages are different countries. The Ethiopian government could claim progress in women’s cabinet posts while child marriage and school dropout kept rewriting girls’ futures.
As rights reference, the piece insists support means contraception access, schooling, economic alternatives, and community work against coercion. Naming the crisis without funding the exit is just another press release.
Sources: Mail & Guardian
