Facebook was slammed for allowing a South Sudan child bride auction to take place on its platform.
A 16-year-old girl’s father reportedly received 500 cows, three cars and $10,000 in exchange for his daughter’s hand in marriage, according to children’s rights group Plan International.
‘This barbaric use of technology is reminiscent of latter-day slave markets,’ said George Otim, Plan International South Sudan’s country director in a Nov. 12 post on the organization’s website. ‘That a girl could be sold for marriage on the world’s biggest social networking site in this day and age is beyond belief.’
Five men — some of whom are reportedly high-ranking government officials — made bids on the girl from Oct. 25 and she was married on Nov. 3, CNN reported Tuesday.
Under South Sudanese law, the teen was considered a child. However, UNICEF noted in November 2017 that 52 percent of girls in the east African nation are married before turning 18.
The post was taken down as soon as Facebook became aware of it on Nov. 9, since it violated the social network’s policies against human trafficking.
‘Any form of human trafficking — whether posts, pages, ads or groups is not allowed on Facebook,’ a Facebook spokesperson said in an emailed statement. ‘We removed the post and permanently disabled the account belonging to the person who posted this to Facebook.’
