Yemen Confronts Plight of Child Brides

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Hopefully this is the beginning of the end of this shameful practice.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0822/p07s03-wome.html

I'm against the motion. Child marriages are also widespread in India, particularly in the North-western area, the Thar desert. My great-grandmother herself was 11 when she got married, and had a very happy marriage. My grandmother was 14. My other grandmother was 17. They all lived happy married lives. However, I'm completely against forced marriage. Islam is also against forced marriage. Those muslims who force their children to get married are committing an unforgivable sin according to their own religion. As per the Quran, one has the right to choose who he/she is getting married to, and it is sunnat (good, but not compulsory) to get their parents approval. My sympathies lie with these girls who were forced to get married, but my sympathies also lie with those who are much older and also forced to get married. I've seen it happen frequently around here, and I consider it to be an inhuman act. The practice of forced marriage is not native to Islam as you might think, it's a chronic problem in all third world countries. I recently recall watching a program about it on BBC, where 30-50% of Ethiopian orthodox christian girls are forced to get married by their parents during their late teens, by far the highest rate throughout the world.

I've previously argued about this, and a certain individual (patched up with him since) started flaming me for being a "pedophile". My view will not change - age doesn't matter at all, whether one is 70 or 7. Marriage doesn't interfere much with one's education, married couples in colleges and high school are proof of that.

The problem is not child marriage, but forced marriage.

The only question(s) I would have about this, Khan_Sama, is at what point is child marriage different from forced marriage? Many people who are almost adults are afraid to go against their parents' decisions about crucial life matters that will affect them for years to come, so how is a 7 year old necessarily supposed to object if she (he?) doesn't want to marry someone at that time, or marry that person, that her parents have picked? What recourse is there for such a young person? I'd say that such a move to abolish or at very least curtail child marriages is a good thing, simply because it could so easily lead to abuse or ignoring consent.

I couldn't think of a way to defend so-called child-marriages.

A child cannot give consent.

What you have there, Khan Sama, is a pederasty culture.

Slowmutant wrote: "A child cannot give consent."

Well, that is the orthodoxy in the West now, isn't it, but that's all it is: orthodoxy.

The fact is it all boils down to physiology. Sexual maturity. Whenever a person reaches puberty and there is social support for marriage, I don't see any reason to prevent it. In the West, they want to vaccinate prepubescent girls against venereal disease and give out condoms in school because "it doesn't make sense to deny reality", but if societies support legitimate sexual relationships between sexually mature youngsters, it's supposedly pathological.

Go figure.

What is needed in these locales is not prevention of child marriage, but rather support to prevent injustice within the system: promoting awareness that a girl has the right to refuse when she reaches maturity and leaders of conscience who can influence fathers to make decisions in their daughters' best interests.

I have two daughters (5 and 3) and I see nothing wrong with contracting their marriage "early" if a suitable match is found and providing support for them if they decide to consummate the marriage when they reach sexual maturity.

Thank you for speaking out, Khan_Sama.

I guess it's your orthodoxy against mine.

touché

I think it's wrong to force a child, or anyone else to get married. It's abominable.

ummAR typed the words right out of my head, thanks. ^^;

Also, in most third world societies, arranged marriage is the norm. Again, there's nothing wrong with an arranged marriage, but one must have the right to refusal.

Also, regarding that a "child can't give consent", there's nothing further from the truth. Children can refuse to take anything they don't want to. Children are not as naive as adults picture them. The concept of marriage is understood by all children, and I knew what sexual intercouse was and how babies are born at the age of 10. Children can, indeed, give consent.

If it's done right, it's not about forcing. Yemen is a Muslim country and in Islam, no woman can be married against her will. She has the right to refuse. Even if her marriage is contracted before puberty, she has the right to have it annulled if she does not want it when she reaches maturity (If she would rather kill herself as it says about the girl in the article). No marriage is lawfully allowed to be consummated before puberty. There are checks and balances in Islamic law, and the imposition of Western cultural values--restrictions and permissions--will be rejected because they do not work with the big picture. The problem is more complex than simply making an arbitrary minimum legal age for marriage. The minimum legal age is puberty. Properly exercised, that is a freedom. And the solution is not going to come from outside. It must work with the existing system, from inside. The economy is weak, governments are corrupt, people (fathers, husbands, mothers, etc.) make bad (even criminal) decisions when under such pressures. These are not excuses for them, but rather an explanation of how violations are not prosecuted. These things can be seen clearly in the article if you can sift through the loaded expressions, but that is difficult to do for readers from a wholly different cultural background who have no knowledge of the situation, and it leads to superficial judgments which is just what many people with an agenda want.

My point is: women have rights in Islam -- both the right to marry when sexually mature and the right not to. It is these rights that are being violated and it is through the legitimate system that they should be addressed.

Throughout history, all over the world, marriage and the family has been the fundamental institution of human society.

Except in the United States and other countries following a parallel path. Here marriage and family are somewhere near the bottom of the list of priorities, way beneath ego and career status.

Half of all marriages end in divorce here, and a significant number of the ones that don't end up in divorce involve people being totally miserable.

In my country, fathers cease to exist in the lives of children after divorce, except as a source of free money. The courts call them "non-custodial parents" so they can pretend they aren't simply discriminating by gender, which is in fact exactly what they're doing.

In our "advanced" culture, male parents and children have no rights. Female parents have no responsibilities. That's the reality of "liberty and justice for all."

But things aren't bad enough yet for those in power. They're working to make it worse. The US Department of Justice is currently using my tax money to put posters all over town telling women to leave "abusive" relationships, to run to the nearest feminist operation and lie about being abused by males and children.

"Abuse" is defined by those in power as any adult female not always getting everything she wants, or getting everything she wants on a silver platter instead of a gold one. If it's proved that she's lying, that doesn't matter. Female children, of course don't matter at all. Their suffering is irrelevant.

It's perfectly okay in the United States for female parents to beat up children, as long as they say the child is "abusive." Don't try to tell me that's not how it works.

Our divorce rate isn't high enough. There aren't enough children being forced to grow up without fathers. We're working hard to make things even worse.

And we're telling people of other cultures to reform their institutions of marriage and the family, so they can be just like us.

I'm sorry, don't bring Islam into the equation in relation to this misogynistic backwards cultural practice.

And don't try to justify it saying: "...She has the right to refuse. Even if her marriage is contracted before puberty, she has the right to have it annulled if she does not want it when she reaches maturity..." because that's a load of bollocks. Do you think the kind of misogynistic excuse for a father who marries off his daughter as a child is going to permit her to have the marriage annulled? No. "Family honour" will come into play and the family will exert intense pressure to prevent her from refusing her suitor. There have been instances of dis-honour killings in this kind of situation.

Marrying off a child is totally unjustifiable and amounts to child abuse.

I read a story in the Toronto Star about a Muslim woman whoser "boyfriend" had burned her face with acid while she slept. He did this because he felt th relationship was not moving along as it should. No charges were laid.

This woman now works in a haidressing salon, believe it or not.

And still they have her in that damned veil, with her face burned off. Why wear it stil? There's nothing left to tempt those righteous men of yours.

Muslim women live as subhuman creatures and somehow think they are being treated like royalty by their adoring men.

Muslim woman have the "right" to beating, rape, immolation, honour-killings ..

Last edited by slowmutant on 23 Aug 2008, 9:01 am, edited 3 times in total.

Sure, me and how many million other guys?

And, as you surely know, things are just as bad in Canada.

Probably, yeah.

Did you read my post? I mentioned that child marriages were once very common in my family, and there were no problems. My mother was 23 when she got married, and she was in a very abusive relationship, my dad started beating her up violently when she was pregnant with me. My parents got divorced 4.5 years ago. There was no child abuse in the case of my grandmother and great-grandmother. There was abuse in the case of my mother. Your theory has no basis.



The veil is not of Islamic origin, it's of Zoroastrian origin. Muslims adopted it as a sign of modesty after the conquest of Sassanid Persia, and it's completely optional to wear it. As she lives in Toronto, I'm sure you're aware that there's no law or external pressure on her to wear it, hence, she has done it out of choice. Her reason for wearing it is her own, not yours.

Beating in Islam - Yes, the Quran does permit it, but the prophet beat his wives with a straw. In the US state of Alabama, it's legal to beat one's wife once a month with a stick which has a diameter equal to one's thumb.

Rape - Rape is one of the worst sins in Islam, and is considered to be an attack on Allah the almighty and the prophet.

immolation - ????? Do you mean "Sati" which is self-immolation of a widow in Hinduism? Don't confuse it with Islam. This further proves your ignorance.

Also, honour killings are common everywhere. They're completely against most existing religions. Honour killings take place with christians too. For example, if a husband kills his wife when he catches her sleeping with another man in your country is considered murder, but if a Muslim, Hindu, or Sikh did the same, it's labelled as an "honour killing". What a load of BS.

Last edited by Khan_Sama on 23 Aug 2008, 9:11 am, edited 1 time in total.