Juba, November 20, 2018 (SSNA) — The United States-based social media giant, Facebook, has come under international scrutiny after it allowed a 16-year old South Sudanese girl to be auctioned off on its website.
The criticism comes nearly a month after Nyalong Ngong Deng was married to a South Sudanese business man. The bridegroom, Kok Alat, who won the contest was able to paid 500 cows, 3 V8 Toyota Land cruisers, and $10,000 US dollars as a dowry.
Children’s rights agency, Plan International, blasted Facebook, accusing the social media site of what it described as “barbaric use of technology.”
“That a girl could be sold for marriage on the world’s biggest social networking site in this day and age is beyond belief. This barbaric use of technology is reminiscent of latter-day slave markets,” Plan International’s South Sudan director, George Otim, said in a statement.
Facebook says it has taken down the post, arguing that it does not support any form of human trafficking.
“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,” the social media said in a response to criticism.
However, children’s rights groups said Facebook took action more than two weeks after the girl was auctioned off.
4 Comments. Leave new
Facebook is failing the world by looking after profit in stead of what is right. I also blame the family of the girl who choose a wrong way to sell their daughter. Facebook should ban future practices such as this one.
Nyalong mother and father only want too many cows they don’t care about what other people say. It is a shame.
Facebook has got nothing to do with this barbaric and stone age practices which is still in practice in South Sudan by some individuals.
It’s their culture and traditions, leave them alone. Facebook did nothing wrong in this case. If South Sudanese want to use technology such as Facebook to ‘advertise’ their traditions, let them do it, this a good way to create awareness to other nations whose citizens never expose to strange traditions. Guess that’s the reason why the world was divided into nations to cater for different cultures after thousands if not million of years of fighting and conflicts.
If you don’t agree with their traditions, ladies and sissy men, just don’t bring these people into your nations ! That’s the best way to avoid starting a war.