Gode
Forced into marriage by her family, 14-year-old Bisharo stayed only five days with her abusive new husband before fleeing his home, fending for herself in drought-stricken southern Ethiopia.
Bisharo, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, sought help at a newly opened clinic for survivors of sexual violence at a hospital in Gode, a town in Ethiopia's dust bowl Somali region.
It is among the worst-hit areas battered by a ferocious drought in the Horn of Africa that has left millions hungry and impoverished amid the driest conditions in 40 years.
The drought has inflicted another toll, doctors and social workers say -- a spike in forced marriages and sexual violence.
UNICEF says child marriages, which are illegal in Ethiopia, have more than doubled in the country's four hardest-hit regions in the first six months of 2022 compared to the previous year.
For many desperate families, marrying off a daughter pays off twice: it reduces the number of mouths to feed, and the dowry given by the husband's family helps cover costs.
Bisharo's dowry was 3,000 Ethiopian birr ($56), said the teenager, who comes from a town outside Gode.
"My parents and my husband's parents have agreed on the marriage deal. I did not know about it. He came to me before the marriage and asked me to marry him but I refused," she said.
The union with the 20-year-old man, who hailed from the same clan as her father and already had a first wife, took place anyway.
He said apart from sexual assault, many in the community did not consider crimes against women to be serious offenses requiring intervention.
Bisharo, the only survivor at the clinic who agreed to speak with AFP, wants to encourage others to speak out.
"This is not only my problem... Even today, I heard a girl was forced to get married, and he tortured her, but her parents are not saying anything," she said.
"Mothers can't oppose the father's decision because they are afraid... the main problem is the fathers."
Bisharo is waiting for her divorce papers so she can leave and stay with a grandmother elsewhere, not wishing to return and face slander in her hometown.
There, she plans to start afresh where she is free to shape her own destiny: "I want to get married to someone close to my age."
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