Type of Media
Film
Project Director
Nancy Durrell McKenna
Date Founded
January 2009
Mission Statement
To create awareness and behavioral change within communities practicing child marriage in the Amhara region of Ethiopia.
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Project Summary
The film: Child Marriage, An Insight to Early Marriage in Ethiopia is used to create awareness on the harmful traditional practice with the Berhane Hewan project region of Amhara, Ethiopia.
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The Film
The film will be shown within a community education program, and can reach right to the heart of remote communities with the aid of a specially developed portable, solar powered DVD player, ten of which will be purchased under this project.
Although child weddings are illegal in Ethiopia the tradition is still very common in rural Amhara, one of the largest regions of Ethiopia where 14% of girls marry by age 10 and 39% marry by age 15. Although the bride, if very young, may continue to live with her parents for some years, a shocking 69% of married adolescents have not started menstruating when they have sex for the first time.
One of the debilitating conditions which can result from child-bearing in early adolescence, before a girl's body has fully matured, is obstetric fistula caused by prolonged and obstructed labour. This condition, which leaves a woman with chronic incontinence, often results in her being rejected by her husband and ostracised by her community. Married girls forced into sexual activity too young also suffer psychological trauma which can affect them for life.
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