Amy Cowen undertook her four-month internship with CARE Ethiopia where she worked on documenting the best practices and implementation approaches employed in programs dealing with safe water, hygiene and sanitation in rural areas, and the promotion of sexual reproductive health among child brides in South Gondar.
With her deep brown eyes cautiously peering out from behind a scarf draped loosely around her face, Belet appeared quiet and bashful upon first glance. Yet, as she began to recall the events of her life, Belet’s seeming timidity faded, revealing a strength, courage, and resilience beyond her fifteen years of age. The fourth child of seven children born to lowincome agriculturists in the Amijaye village of northern Ethiopia, Belet was married off by her family without her knowledge - a child bride at age eight to a 22 year old man. The wedding was held under the guise of a religious ceremony after which she was quickly taken by her younger brother to the home of her new husband and in-laws; it was only there that she discovered she was married and consequently forced to drop out of school.
After three years of living with her husband’s family, they urged her at age eleven to have sexual intercourse with her husband despite the fact that she had yet to begin menstruation. But, Belet refused. “How long will you continue to live under this roof without having intercourse with your husband,” she vividly recalls them asking. Following a second attempt at coercing her to have sex with her husband, she ran away to the nearest town with another young girl in a similar circumstance. Upon her escape, she was found by one of her brothers and taken back to her husband’s family. She was once again forced to share a bed with her husband. After attempting to have sex with her, she again avidly refused and ultimately left him, leaving her divorced at the young age of 12. Belet’s family began to arrange a second marriage for her, hoping to solve the family’s poor economic status through another arranged marriage. Yet, this time, Belet did not remain silent.
After gaining new life skills and a sense of empowerment through her involvement with CARE Ethiopia’s TESFA project, an initiative working with child brides in northern Ethiopia, she shared how she ultimately convinced her family to release her from the marriage and allow her to continue her education. She is now in second grade and aspires to be a teacher in order to give others the opportunity to learn from her experiences and the knowledge she acquired. Empowered with new skills and equipped with a greater sense of confidence, she not only discovered the power within her to change her own life, but is now using her voice to impact others within her community. Belet went on to prevent three other child marriages in her village while her elder sister and mother now use family planning as a result of Belet’s counsel.
Though currently only fifteen years old, the life of Belet is truly an inspiring story of one girl’s escape from the confines of forced early marriage to go on and transform her life by continuing her education, empowering other girls and combating child marriage within her own community,
Amy Cowen
