Social media throughout Africa is buzzing with the apparent news that Eritrea’s government has issued a memo COMPELLING the nation’s men to take at least two wives or face prison.
The post, which was written in Arabic and translated to English by activists, reads:
“Based on the law of God in polygamy, and given the circumstances in which the country is experiencing in terms of men shortage, the Eritrean Department of Religious Affairs has decided on the following:
“First that every man shall marry at least two women and the man who refuses to do so shall be subjected to life imprisonment with hard labour.
“The woman who tries to prevent her husband from marrying another wife shall be punished to life imprisonment.”
The suggestion is that the “circumstances” refer to a shortage of men caused by casualties during the civil war with Ethiopia.
We have not been able to authenticate the document nor the translation. Nor is it clear why the statement was not in the other two national languages, Tigrinya and Tigre.
The May 1998 to June 2000 Eritrean-Ethiopian war saw 150,000 soldiers killed on either side. The casualties impacted Eritrea’s relatively small population much more acutely, however. Estimates put Eritrea’s population at around 6 million against Ethiopia’s 100 million.
