Facebook has recently come under fire in what people call barbaric use of technology which allowed the sale of a child bride through the platform.
According to information garnered, the auction was held on the social media site for a 16-year-old girl in South Sudan. Dowry was sought through the auction on the social media platform.
Although Facebook claimed that the post was taken down immediately the team learned of it, the damage had been done. Also, there were claims that the post was not taken down until the girl was married.
Children’s rights organization Plan International said that up to five men put a bid for the teenage girl. Some of these men were high-ranking South Sudanese government officials.
The problem now is that activist are worried that others could borrow a leaf from this type of auction and make use of it in the future to receive larger dowries. The father of the girl put up in auction reportedly received 500 cows, three cars and $10,000 in exchange for his daughter.
Some individuals have demonstrated disbelief that this kind of bargain could happen on world’s largest social networking site at this time. The country director, Plan International said that the incident is reminiscent of latter-day slave markets.
Facebook said that the bidding began on the 25th October and that it removed the post on November 9th. That amounts to 15 days auction. Facebook continued to maintained that any type of trafficking is not allowed on its network, whether through posts, pages, ads or groups. All these places are not allowed for such kinds of merchandize.
In the same release, Facebook said that the post was removed and the account that made the post was immediately disabled from any other participation on Facebook. The company emphasized that it is always improving the way in which it identifies content that breaks Facebook’s policies, including doubling safety and security team to more than 30,000 and investing in technology.
Violations against women in South Sudan are a continuous issue. However, stakeholders believe that for Facebook to allow its platform to be used to enhance these violations makes the problem worse.
