(no subject)

Nurame was in her bed when she was woken by an angry mêlée. In her family's hut there were grown men - an incredible number, 10 or more, all in their 30s, all standing over her father, shouting. They reached for her. ... [E]ven though she was eight years old, she suspected at once what was happening. She had heard whispers that, when a girl is considered ready for marriage, a man will seize her, and rape her, and then she must serve him for the rest of her life. "That was the culture," she says. But it wasn't her culture: like all the other little girls, she didn't want it. "I started screaming and tried to run out of the hut," she says. "I hid in the trees - hah! - but one of the men found me."

( cut for length and violence triggers )

from Kidnapped, Raped, Married: The Extraordinary Rebellion of Ethiopia's Abducted Wives