Women This Week: Activists End Effort to Carry out Mass Wedding Involving Child Brides in Nigeria

Ceremony Halted After Thousands Petition Against Wedding 

A mass ceremony to marry one hundred girls and young women in Nigeria has been called off after outrage from human rights activists and others. The state-sponsored wedding was proposed by Abdulmalik Sarkindaj, the speaker of the state assembly in the state of Niger. Sarkindaj offered to pay “groom doweries” for the women and young girls who were orphaned after armed bandits killed their families. Nigeria’s women’s affairs minister, Uju Kennedy Ohanenye, argued that the mass wedding violated legislation that criminalizes forced marriage. She is now seeking a court injunction and additional details about the girls who were to be married. “What I’m fighting is illegality. I’m not fighting tradition or religion. This is to make sure it doesn’t happen,” she said. Human rights groups are continuing to circulate petitions to urge the government to prioritize girls’ education over marriage.  

Women and LGBTQ+ Activists in Thailand Targeted in State-Sponsored Digital Attacks 

A new report by Amnesty International, “Being Ourselves is Too Dangerous,” exposes how women and LGBTQ+ activists in Thailand are being targeted with digital violence to intimidate and silence them. Amnesty interviewed forty activists, including nine women who were found to have been targeted by Pegasus, a highly invasive spyware. The investigation found that attempts to silence these groups are coming from state and non-state actors who are using technology to harass and spread disinformation, sexualized content, and hateful speech about their targets. One student activist said that she received alerts that her iPhone was infected with “[s]tate-sponsored attackers.” She later confirmed that Pegasus spyware had infected her device fourteen times for her involvement in student groups who wanted to see the monarchy reformed. “As a woman, having my privacy invaded is frightening. If I have private photos on my phone, they could be leaked to smear my reputation and hurt me to the extent that I’d have to stop my activism,” she said. “I believe women and LGBTI activists are being watched, monitored, and scrutinized more closely.” 

Turkey’s President Claims Eurovision is a Threat to Family  

Turkey’s president, Tayyip Erdoğan, has criticized the popular Eurovision song contest as a threat to traditional family values. He described participants as the “Trojan horses of social corruption” and emphasized that it was the “right decision” to keep “Turkey out of this disgraceful competition for the past 12 years.” This reaction came after Switzerland’s Nemo Mettler became the first non-binary person to win the pan-European song competition. Also, this week, Erdoğan responded to Turkey’s dropping birthrate—now 1.51 children per woman in 2023—as an “existential threat” to the country. His government has adopted a pro-family approach centered on encouraging married male-female couples to have at least three children.