In the sticky heat of a June day in Juba, South Sudan’s capital, groups of young men and women sang as they walked along the main road of Sherikat, on the east bank of the White Nile. Weaving through the slow-moving traffic, the boys carried long sticks while the girls wore colourful beads, skirts and lawas, a long piece of cloth tied on the shoulder.
With thousands of other Dinka, one of the largest ethnic groups in South Sudan, they would dance late into the night at the agam (‘acceptance’ in Dinka) ceremony that celebrates the conclusion of a “marriage competition”, the traditional practice in which several men vie for the hand of a marriageable girl.
For months, Marial Garang Jil and Chol Marol Deng, two South Sudanese men in their 40s who come from two different Dinka clans in Jonglei state but now live abroad, had been vying to marry Athiak Dau Riak, a girl her mother says is 14.
Athiak’s father, Dau Riak Magany, says she is 19 and has consented to the marriage, despite the fact that she was in primary 8 year at school (which children usually start at 13) when the marriage negotiations began in March this year.
Her mother, Deborah Kuir Yach, who is now in hiding for her safety as she opposes the marriage, says she has proof that her daughter is 14.
The case might have remained a dispute between family members had photos and videos of gatherings not been posted online and quickly shared.
The story of Athiak and her suitors went viral; Athiak was praised for her height and beauty, and as “the girl at the heart of a historic marriage competition” in publications across Africa.
After the ceremonial part of the wedding in June, when she was given as a wife to Chol Marol Deng, for a payment of 123 cattle, 120m South Sudanese pounds (about $44,000 or £33,000) in cash and a plot of land, she was dubbed “the most expensive bride in South Sudan” in TikTok videos that gained thousands of likes.
“There is nothing wrong with this marriage,” her father said at the time. Garang Mayen Riak, a cousin of Athiak who travelled from Canada for the ceremony, agreed. “We’re an educated family – we cannot force a girl to marry,” he said, stating his attachment to Dinka traditions. “This marriage is unique, because such competitions rarely happen in our modern society. We’re proud of it because it reminds us of who we are.”
South Sudan’s 2008 Child Act prohibits early and forced marriage, but according to Unicef, child marriage is “still a common practice” and “recent figures indicate that 52% of girls [in South Sudan] are married before they turn 18, with some girls being married off as young as 12 years old”.
An Edinburgh University-led report on the “brideprice” system in South Sudan says “customary courts often accept menstruation as the criteria for eligibility to marry” and early marriage is “a common practice … likely motivated by families’ ambitions to gain brideprices for their daughters as soon as possible”.
Globally, 12 million girls are married in childhood every year, according to another Unicef report. Across sub-Saharan Africa, more than a third of young women were married before the age of 18.
Despite child marriage being commonplace, Athiak’s case has gripped the country. In the social media frenzy, people “campaigned” for their preferred suitor. Others promoted the wedding as an affirmation of “Dinka culture and identity”, rebuffing critics who had condemned the process as “the auctioning of a girl”.
But the online activity also caught the attention of a lawyer, Josephine Adhet Deng, who opened a case against Dau Riak Magany in June, alleging that he had allowed the wedding of a minor and calling for Athiak to be brought back from Kenya, where she was taken shortly after the agam ceremony.
Questions around Athiak’s age were sparked by a Facebook post by her maternal uncle, Daniel Yach, a Canadian citizen, who said “she is a minor” and condemned the proposed marriage as “a classic example of pedophilia”.
“I was very shocked because I had not seen Athiak since I left to Canada in 2015,” he says in a phone call. “By then she was six years old. Then I saw the posts about the marriage and I discovered how tall she had become.
“But she’s just a child. This little girl is being brainwashed. It’s the craziest stuff ever.”
When Chol Marol Deng was announced as the winning suitor on 13 June by a committee of Athiak’s uncles and father, they said it was “her choice”.
But that did not sway Aluel Atem, a South Sudanese feminist activist. “She had to pick one of them. I don’t think there was an option for her not to choose either of these two men,” she says.
Atem describes the arrangement as “something close to a forced marriage”, even though Athiak probably “takes pride in the fact that the pledges were so high for her brideprice”.
“It’s a thing now for these young girls in Sherikat,” she says. “The mentality is like that: the more a man pays, the more worthy you are. There’s a status attached.”
Sarah Diew Biel, a protection manager for the South Sudanese development organisation Nile Hope, says: “When you’re going against a thousand people who are saying ‘this marriage is OK’, you become a traitor in the eyes of the community, with a khawaja [foreigner] mentality. It’s mentally and emotionally draining.”
Biel works with other local organisations and social workers – as well as the police and the Ministry of Gender, Child and Social Welfare – to provide protection for survivors of gender-based violence in South Sudan, including using safe houses for girls who escape forced marriages.
“The South Sudanese are very proud of their culture and identity, and I am too, but there are cultural norms that do more harm than good,” she says.
Athiak’s mother tried to stop the wedding. “I tried telling the family that Athiak should not be married,” she says. “But they all insisted.
“They were looking for the cows. They saw that Athiak will bring them that great wealth. When I refused, they separated me from my daughter.”
On the day the decision was made that Athiak would marry Chol Marol Deng, “I tried to kill myself,” she says. “And the next day, I decided to run away.”
Yach claims Athiak’s birth certificate and ID were destroyed by other family members. “They sneaked out with Athiak to make a new age-assessment certificate, based on a false date of birth, in my absence,” she says.
A new passport says Athiak was born in 2005, but Yach has an emergency travel document processed by South Sudan’s interior ministry in August 2015, stating that Athiak was born in Juba on 28 December 2009.
Today, Yach is confined to the few square metres of the house where she is in hiding, separated from her seven children, and with her life on hold. “I don’t know who she’s staying with,” she says of Athiak.
The lawyer, Adhet Deng, believes Athiak is now probably in Nairobi with the family of Chol Marol Deng, who has returned to Canada, where he works.
Adhet Deng is waiting for the judiciary to consider if the case she filed can progress, as it is not clear with an already “sealed” customary wedding.
But she says there could be another way: “I have told the father and the other family members that they should pause this wedding, let Athiak go back to school for at least five years, and decide then what she wants.”
Athiak has never spoken publicly about the controversy surrounding her marriage. But, on the eve of the agam celebration in June, she told the Guardian that, had the marriage process not started, she would have “preferred to study”.
• This article was amended on 28 September 2024. An earlier version said that 112 million girls are married in childhood; this should have said 12 million, which is the number given in the Unicef report.
