I guess today’s Yemen day:
Once again, don’t dare mention Islam, but here you have a group of Muslims fighting for their right to marry children.
She was 2 years old when her father promised her in marriage to a man in his 30s. It was a swap, so the father could marry the man’s sister without paying the obligatory bride-price.
At age 9, the girl was put on a sack of rice to appear taller next to the bridegroom in the wedding picture. At 11, she was taken to her husband’s house to live. Despite promising not to consummate the marriage before she reached puberty, he tied her to a bed, stuffed a rag in her mouth and raped her, she says.
“One day he tied me up and attacked me,” the girl, who is now 13 and has fled her husband, told The Associated Press on Wednesday, choking with tears during an interview at an orphanage that has given her shelter. Her name and her husband’s aren’t being used to protect her identity.
Child marriages are widespread in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, where tribal customs dominate society. More than a quarter of its females marry before age 15, according to a recent report by the Social Affairs Ministry.
The issue of child brides vaulted into the headlines here two years ago when an 8-year-old boldly went by herself to a courtroom and demanded a judge dissolve her marriage to a man in his 30s. She eventually won a divorce, and legislators began looking at ways to curb the practice.
In February, parliament passed a law setting the minimum marriage age at 17. But some lawmakers are trying to kill the measure, calling it un-Islamic. Before it could be ratified by Yemen’s president, they forced it to be sent back to parliament’s constitutional committee for review.
Child marriage is an issue elsewhere. In neighboring, more affluent Saudi Arabia, several cases of child brides have been reported in the past year, though the phenomenon is not believed to be nearly as widespread as in Yemen.
Of course, the AP manages to blame everything on poverty and “local traditions”
In Yemen, poverty is the main reason families marry off young daughters, to get bride-prices up to several hundred dollars. Local traditions encourage the practice out of a belief a young bride can be shaped into an obedient wife, bear more children and be kept away from temptation.
The weak government relies on support from tribal leaders and Islamists so is reluctant to take action on customs they support
Hey, at least they’re libertarian minded, right?
Yemen once set 15 as the minimum marriage age, but parliament eliminated it in the 1990s, saying parents should decide when a daughter marries.
Of course, Yemeni Muslims call it a “Western Plot” and insist that the Koran permits pedophelia and Muhammed never banned the practice. All of us here know of course this is true, yet liberals and appeasers will forver deny this fact.
Legislator Sheik Mohammed al-Hazmi, one of the most ardent opponents of a minimum marriage age, says the new law is a “Western plot aimed at Westernizing our culture.”
“The West wants to teach us how to marry, conceive and divorce. This is cultural colonization that we reject,” he told AP.
Al-Hazmi said Islam permits the practice because nothing in the Quran and the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad bans it. “Everything that is not forbidden is permitted,” he said.
Related posts:
- Yemen: Over half of married women under 15, says report
- Yemen: Child bride dies giving birth
- Man says will wait to consummate marriage with 10-year-old Hail girl
- Yemen: Outlawing child marriages violates shariah law
- Yemen: child trafficking to increase in Ramadan
- “Moderate” Malaysia: Government minister defends child marriage laws
- Indonesia: Islamic leader defends child marriages
- Calls for end to Saudi child marriages
- Canada dealing with influx of Muslim immigrants bringing their “child brides” with them
- Moroccan cleric issues fatwa – in FAVOR of child marriage
