Ethiopian Family Values [Brenda Walker] - 12/12/04

Here is another heartwarming family-values item for the diversity file: Ethiopians place so much importance on marriage that many encourage their tiny daughters to get an early start, with parents thoughtfully arranging weddings for girls as young as seven. (Here is a photo of Tihun Nebiyu, 7, as she awaits her marriage to her future husband, 17.)

Among Ethiopia's rural Amhara people, almost 90 percent of the girls are married before age 15. Many of these children are sold off to older men, who value the virginity and the trainability available in the very young. Not only do the girls lose their childhood, they are also forced into household servitude, an end to their education and unhealthy pregnancies at too young an age.

Interestingly, our State Department regards America as having too few Ethiopians according to its cultural diversity standards. The 2005 Diversity Visa Lottery is awarding 6,060 lucky Ethiopians with green cards. That number is among the highest in State's missionary calculus to increase the number of least appropriate immigrants, in which corruption champ Bangladesh (7,404) and Sharia-loving Nigeria (6,725) are also favored.

It's surprising that Indonesia is slighted with only 258 visa lottery slots this year. Indonesia has some of the most extreme diversity on the planet, such as on the island of Borneo and other spots where there are still truly colorful cannibals and head-hunters knocking around.

Why aren't Indonesian lobbyists noising up the Refugee Industrial Complex and its pals over at the State Department so they can receive similar respect to what the Ethiopians get? Isn't immigration for cannibals a basic human right?