‘Mushrie is not (child) marriage ’ : conceptualising and localising child marriage in rural Ethiopia

Legal frameworks declare that all marriages involving individuals less than 18 years are illegal, and harmful and must be abolished. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Aneded district, rural Ethiopia, using in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with parents who have married off their children and officials who work to eliminate child marriage, we explored its multifaceted character. Employing a decolonial, sociocultural, and relational approach, we explored the officials’ conceptualisations of child marriage in their work and then examined community logics in defining and practicing a local version of child marriage, mushrie. The empirical data shows that the purpose and form of mushrie differ from most globalised perceptions of child marriage, resulting in ongoing community resistance to abolishing child marriage.