1 Developing a Transformative Human Rights Approach towards the Practice of (Girl) Early Marriage in Ethiopia By Tayechalem Moges 1 Abstract The resiliency of human rights is tested by its ability to transform the everyday lives of local communities that appropriate the language of rights. My research aims to come up with a transformative human rights approach towards addressing the practice of early marriage in Ethiopia. The paper explores the perspectives of former child wives (now adult women) in the Amhara Regional State in Ethiopia, drawing upon post-colonial and feminist perspectives and through the medium of interviews. The key questions address the perspectives of former child wives relating to early marriage, the role of important relationships in their experience as child wives, their ways of negotiating and developing coping mechanisms and the role of the language of rights in their everyday lives. The findings of interviews with former child wives reveal the importance of listening to their voices in a way that goes beyond the need for drawing upon their stories. I argue that the former child wives’ appropriation and use of the language of rights in itself, however diverse, makes a case for human rights in an age of ambiguity. I. Introduction Human rights have yet to become the main framework for social justice as applied to the lives of child wives in the Amhara Regional State, in Ethiopia. The practice of early marriage remains widespread in Ethiopia despite the presence of established laws and many interventions from global and local human rights actors. 2 A 2015 African Union report, for example, put the prevalence of early marriage of girls in Ethiopia at 41 per cent citing different government and NGO sources. 3 Whereas, current official state figures put the prevalence of early marriage of girls in the Amhara region at 44.8 per cent, well above other regional averages. 4 What is more alarming about the statistics in the Amhara region is the recruitment of child wives into marriage at a very young age. 5 Ethiopia has made a commitment to eradicate the practice of early marriage 1 Tayechalem Moges is a doctoral candidate and a teaching fellow at the Melbourne Law School. She is presently engaged in a project on ‘Developing a Transformative Human Rights Approach towards the Practice of (girl) Early Marriage in Ethiopia’. 2 The 1994 Ethiopian constitution clearly provides that ‘marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses’ and sets the minimum legal age for marriage at 18 for both boys and girls. Ethiopia’s Criminal Code of 2005, which is applicable to all regional states, outlines criminal sanctions against perpetrators. 3 African Union, “Draft Concept Note, African Girl’s Summit on Ending Child Marriage in Africa,” accessed at http://pages.au.int/sites/default/files, on Nov. 19, 2015. Source: UNICEF State of the World's Children, 2013 - data from UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), 4 National Strategy and Action Plan on Harmful Traditional Practices against Women and Children in Ethiopia, Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Ministry of Women, Children and Youth Affairs, June 2013, Addis Ababa 5 Other competing statistics , for example, shows that almost 50 per cent of girls in the Amhara region are married by the age of 15. See Annabel S. Erulkar and Eunice Muthengi, "Evaluation of Berhane Hewan: A Program to Delay Child Marriage in Rural Ethiopia," International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health 35, no. 1 (2009), accessed at www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3500609.pdf, on Dec. 8, 2010; and Population Council and UNFPA, The Adolescent