Facebook has come under fire for a “barbaric use of technology” that allowed the sale of a child bride to be held on its site.
An auction was held on the social media platform for a 16-year-old girl in South Sudan which sought dowry for her hand in marriage.
Facebook said the post was taken down as soon as the company learned of it, but that wasn’t until after the girl was married.
According to children’s rights organization Plan International, the girl was bid on by five men, some of whom were reportedly high-ranking South Sudanese government officials.
Activists are concerned that this auction — for which the father reportedly received 500 cows, three cars and $10,000 in exchange for his daughter — could inspire other families to use social media sites to receive larger dowries.
Plan International’s country director in South Sudan, George Otim, 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.”
He added: “This barbaric use of technology is reminiscent of latter-day slave markets.”
Facebook told CNN that its platform was used for the bidding, which started on October 25, and that it removed the post on November 9 — 15 days later.
“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,” the spokesperson added.
An organization focused on gender equality, Equality Now, called on Facebook to improve its monitoring practices.
“Violations against women in South Sudan are a continuing issue, but for Facebook to allow their platform to enhance these violations is a problem,” said Judy Gitau, Equality Now’s regional coordinator for Africa.
She told CNN that Facebook has a responsibility to uphold women’s rights, and added: “They ought to put in place more human resources to monitor their platform to ensure that women’s rights, and indeed the rights of all people, are protected.”
Plan International has also called on the South Sudanese government to investigate and suspend any officials involved in the bridal auction.
“Child marriage is a serious violation of human rights and a form of violence against girls,” Otim from the group said in a statement.
“It can have profound consequences on a child’s survival, health, education, development and well-being and is often carried out against their will and best interests.”
According to UNICEF’s November 2017 figures, 52% of girls in South Sudan are married before they turn 18.
The United Nations’ agency, which aids the world’s needy children, says that the country’s high levels of poverty, instability and gender gap fuel child marriage — with both girls and their families feeling it can help them escape poverty.