“The most pivotal moment in my life”
*Name concealed to protect identity
At just 14 years old, Amsalech* was walking to market in Hula, Ethiopia, as she had done many times before. Her family grows crops, and it was her job to sell produce to help support them.
But that day, she didn’t come home.
“I never knew and saw the person who abducted me before,” Amsalech says. “That was the first day when I saw him.”
Without warning, a group of men grabbed her. One of them, a young man she had never met, had decided he wanted her to be his wife. And in a place where girls’ voices are too often ignored, he took her.
For 24 days, Amsalech was hidden, moved from house to house to evade the search parties. At home, her family worked with World Vision and the district Women and Children’s Office to report her disappearance to the police and trace her abductors.
“Since the day my family heard the news... they did all they could to search for me,” Amsalech recalls. “Those days were tough for me. I faced so many life challenges, suffering, and pains in my emotions, physical and personality.”
Every day during her captivity, the man tried to assault her. “Sometimes, when I rejected his false promises, he would be angry with me and beat me with what was on his hands.”
A turning point came when police detained the man’s relatives. Hoping to secure their release, his mother pressured Amsalech to lie. But Amsalech had attended child protection training through World Vision’s sponsorship programme at her school. She had learned that girls had rights, and that what was happening to her was not just wrong, but illegal.
“I cheated him by saying I would report to the police,” she says. “But instead, I disclosed all that had happened to me.”
Amsalech was brought to safety and reunited with her family. But her healing had only just begun.
“When I returned to my family, I was very happy… However, I am ashamed about the perceptions of the community,” she says. “Everybody was talking about me, because the acceptable culture is that a woman or girl, once abducted, should accept and submit to the marriage.”
Even after being rescued, girls like Amsalech face stigma, shame, and isolation. “I felt so alone… I didn’t want to see my friends.”
Girls in Hula face widespread gender inequality and harmful practices like child marriage.. Some families still see marriage as a way to secure dowries or keep daughters close to home. Survivors of abuse face blame rather than support.
“In our community, there are distorted, unequal perceptions and attitudes… Males are privileged and respected, and they take ownership and decision-making roles,” Amsalech says. “We face fear about gender-based violence, abuse, bad talk against us, and wrong perceptions. Our trust is only in our God to give us his protection.”
Sponsorship is helping restore that trust, and replace fear with hope.
World Vision’s sponsorship staff supported the police and the women and children’s office to pursue Amsalech’s case through the courts, and ultimately, her abductors were sentenced to 10 years in prison. World Vision also provided Amsalech with trauma counselling and later, with the supplies she needed to start studying again at a new school.
World Vision’s child sponsorship programme began in Hula in 2006 and today supports more than 23,000 children. Sponsorship helps fund education, clean water, food security, and crucial child protection work in partnership with government offices. Sponsorship is also working to protect girls by breaking down damaging social norms that condone violence against girls and building understanding of children’s rights and gender equality in the community through sessions for boys and girls, teachers, community leaders and faith leaders.
Now at 15, Amsalech is living near a new school and continuing her education in Grade 9. “Now I am feeling freedom and a sense of being heard in my case… That gives me energy and new hope for my life.”
Amsalech dreams of becoming a doctor, and of helping other girls avoid what she went through. “I’m hoping to succeed in my education and new life by overcoming flashing bad memories.”
Right now, 1000 girls like Amsalech face the threat of violence, just because they are girls. Will you stand with them? With your sponsorship gift, you can help a girl and her community build a future where every child lives free from fear. Sponsor a girl today.