topic Re: FB Hosted Child Bride Auction in Community Chat

FB Hosted Child Bride Auction

KingstonsMom — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 16:17:01 GMT

An auction for a South Sudanese child bride was hosted on Facebook on October 25, unbeknownst to the social networking site for over two weeks.

The father who benefited from the sale secured 500 cows, three cars and $10,000 in exchange for his 17-year-old daughter's hand in marriage, from the highest bidder out of five men, some of whom are high-ranking government officials, according to a child's rights organization called Plan International.

Facebook found out about the post on November 9, took it down and permanently disabled the account that posted the auction, but the daughter had already been married by that time.

'This barbaric use of technology is reminiscent of latter-day slave markets,' George Otim, Country Director of Plan International South Sudan, said.

'That a girl could be sold for marriage on the world’s biggest social networking site in this day and age is beyond belief.'

The issue of paying a dowry for a bride in South Sudan, which Facebook classified as human trafficking, is complicated, to say the least.

Western advocacy groups consistently call for an end to the practice altogether, while some young girls in the country have said prices have gotten too high, thus encouraging the sale of younger and younger girls, all while a cattle famine has made resources scarce for everyone involved, also encouraging sales of brides but also creating an environment for theft to thrive as young men hope pay a bride price.

The teenage girl in this case was married to the auction's winner on November 3, in the country’s Eastern Lakes state. There's no word on her feelings about the union.

'Any form of human trafficking -- whether posts, pages, ads or groups is not allowed on Facebook. We removed the post and permanently disabled the account belonging to the person who posted this to Facebook,' a company spokesperson said in a statement.

'We're always improving the methods we use to identify content that breaks our policies, including doubling our safety and security team to more than 30,000 and investing in technology.'

More info:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6411511/Facebook-hosted-South-Sudanese-child-bride-auction-site.html

Re: FB Hosted Child Bride Auction

riley1 — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 16:29:32 GMT

I'm surprised that no one saw and reported that page to alert FB.

Re: FB Hosted Child Bride Auction

PhilaLady1 — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 17:25:39 GMT

WOW this incident is beyond words horrific. This makes me so angry.

And this "There's no word on her feelings about the union". Well of course not, certainly she is not allowed to have any words.

And it is time for Facebook to go byebye.

Re: FB Hosted Child Bride Auction

happycat — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 17:53:28 GMT

Good heavens, that is the craziest thing, but I guess nothing should surprise us at this point. Poor girl, I hope the man isn't mean to her.

Re: FB Hosted Child Bride Auction

scatcat — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 17:55:34 GMT

So we’re all mad at FB but not the family who SOLD THEIR DAUGHTER?

Is it possible for FB to monitor every single post that goes up?

Re: FB Hosted Child Bride Auction

goldensrbest — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 18:04:08 GMT

@scatcat wrote:
So we’re all mad at FB but not the family who SOLD THEIR DAUGHTER?

Is it possible for FB to monitor every single post that goes up?

It is really bad the people do this, i don't know how you stop this if it is common in their country.

Re: FB Hosted Child Bride Auction

Deanie — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 18:44:33 GMT

I dont for one minute believe F did not know about this.

Re: FB Hosted Child Bride Auction

kitcat51 — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 18:53:02 GMT

Selling girls for marriage goes on everyday in other countries, only someone who doesn't know would be outraged it was on FB too & the girls involved are much younger than 17, they should be going to grade school & playing with dolls. I don't know what can be done about the disgusting custom, a little amount of money & livestock increases the father's standing & meager wealth. In this country I was stunned to see what happened with the FGM case in MI...I read it on the Fox News website but I'm sure it can be found on others so please read & then check to see if FGM is banned in your state.

Re: FB Hosted Child Bride Auction

riley1 — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 19:32:20 GMT

@kitcat51 - That practice is horrific and should be against the law. However, I checked my state and nope, we do not have a law against FGM. I'm not really shocked because my state can't seem to deal with regular crime on a daily basis.

Re: FB Hosted Child Bride Auction

kitcat51 — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 20:58:02 GMT

@riley1 wrote:
@kitcat51 - That practice is horrific and should be against the law. However, I checked my state and nope, we do not have a law against FGM. I'm not really shocked because my state can't seem to deal with regular crime on a daily basis.

My state has passed a law but 23 others haven't, if your state is a no please contact everyone who can get a law passed...no girl should have this horrific practice done to them. I hope the judges decision is overturned in the MI case.

Re: FB Hosted Child Bride Auction

scatcat — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 21:47:57 GMT

@Deanie wrote:
I dont for one minute believe F did not know about this.

I disagree. What does FB have to gain from this disturbing sale of their daughter? They are not brokering the deal. They have nothing to gain but bad press.

I was on FB for a few years but deleted my account a while back.

Re: FB Hosted Child Bride Auction

Big Joanie — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 22:21:58 GMT

As Oprah said years ago ... if your a female born in America your

pretty lucky ....I know .. not that we don't have our problems .....

Re: FB Hosted Child Bride Auction

this is my nic — Thu, 22 Nov 2018 01:41:45 GMT

Pitiful.

FB cannot read every comment, however they do have programs that zero in on certain words or combinations of words. Seems like auctioning a human being should have been noticed.

Re: FB Hosted Child Bride Auction

occasionalrain — Fri, 23 Nov 2018 16:30:29 GMT

It seems sexist to be outraged over FGM while MGM is an accepted practice by many in this country. If it's wrong for females it's just as wrong for males.

Re: FB Hosted Child Bride Auction

esmerelda — Fri, 23 Nov 2018 21:17:11 GMT

OK. I’m out of touch. What is FGM? I can figure out the F is female as someone mentioned MGM and I assume the first M there is male. But what’s the rest?

Re: FB Hosted Child Bride Auction

RoughDraft — Fri, 23 Nov 2018 21:20:55 GMT

@esmerelda wrote:
OK. I’m out of touch. What is FGM? I can figure out the F is female as someone mentioned MGM and I assume the first M there is male. But what’s the rest?

@esmerelda Think specific mutilation.

Re: FB Hosted Child Bride Auction

millieshops — Fri, 23 Nov 2018 21:30:37 GMT

@PhilaLady1I wish I thought all the evil would disappear if only there were no FB, no Twitter, etc. I hold no hope that that's true.

Re: FB Hosted Child Bride Auction

esmerelda — Sat, 24 Nov 2018 01:05:01 GMT

@RoughDraft Got it. Thanks