Eritrea: “Marry two wives or be jailed for life” – president reportedly orders

A statement purportedly from the government of Eritrea says any man who fails to marry at least two wives will now be jailed for life.

The statement, reportedly written in Arabic and translated into English by “Eritrean activists,” went viral after surfacing online, Tuesday.

We don’t know why the statement was not in the other two national languages of the east African country – Tigrinya and Tigre.

But Arabic is also one of the official languages in Eritrea, a country with over seven ethnic groups.

The statement says:

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 government, the statement says, made the move because of the shortage of men that resulted from the war Eritrea fought against Ethiopia.

Over 150,000 people were killed in the Eritrean-Ethiopian war which took place between May 1998 and June 2000.

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The population of Eritrea was a mere four million people at that time. The war was reported to have had a huge impact on the nation’s male population, many of who were drafted into the army.

And here’s how Twitter’s reacting to the “good news.”