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Design Rewards and Demand Accountability 215

to save face. This dreadful practice had survived in silence for
generations. Nobody wanted to talk about or address the issue.
However, that changed when a popular radio soap opera ad-
dressed the issue head on. Dr. Negussie Teffera—Population
Media Center’s country representative in Ethiopia—worked
with a staff of writers and producers to create an enormously
popular radio show titled Yeken Kignit (“Looking Over One’s
Daily Life”). In one story line, a much-admired character on
the soap opera, a woman named Wubalem, was abducted and
then eventually freed and able to marry the man she really
loved. Immediately, this previously taboo topic became part of
the public discourse. A letter from one female listener shows
the impact the program had on the devastating problem in her
community:

The story of Wubalem in your radio drama reflects clearly
to the general public the harmful traditional practices in
our country such as abduction and sexual violence. These
practices have prevented us from sending our girls to
school. . . . Our first child was married at the age of 14
after she was abducted. We were worrying for years as we
thought that our second child would face a similar fate.
At present, however, the radio drama focusing on abduc-
tion and sexual violence that you have presented to the
public, and the discussions conducted on these topics,
have aroused considerable popular indignation. The peo-
ple have now strongly condemned such inhuman tradi-
tional practices. . . . Unlike in the past, special punitive
measures have been taken by community people against
offenders involved in such crimes. As a result, we have no
worry in sending our girls to school. Our children go to
school safely and return unharmed.

According to Dr. Negussie, the problem has been solved in
many places in Ethiopia once and for all—not simply as a