Child Marriage

[JayT]

Tiny Voices Defy Child Marriage in Yemen

 

By ROBERT F. WORTH Published: June 29, 2008

 

JIBLA, Yemen â?? One morning last month, Arwa Abdu Muhammad Ali walked out of her husbandâ??s house here and ran to a local hospital, where she complained that he had been beating and sexually abusing her for eight months.

 

That alone would be surprising in Yemen, a deeply conservative Arab society where family disputes tend to be solved privately. What made it even more unusual was that Arwa was 9 years old.

 

Within days, Arwa â?? a tiny, delicate-featured girl â?? had become a celebrity in Yemen, where child marriage is common but has rarely been exposed in public. She was the second child bride to come forward in less than a month; in April, a 10-year-old named Nujood Ali had gone by herself to a courthouse to demand a divorce, generating a landmark legal case.

 

Together, the two girlsâ?? stories have helped spur a movement to put an end to child marriage, which is increasingly seen as a crucial part of the cycle of poverty in Yemen and other third world countries. Pulled out of school and forced to have children before their bodies are ready, many rural Yemeni women end up illiterate and with serious health problems. Their babies are often stunted, too.

 

The average age of marriage in Yemenâ??s rural areas is 12 to 13, a recent study by Sana University researchers found. The country, at the southern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.

 

Link

[Flashermac]

Muhammad married a 6 year old and shagged her when she was 9. If it's good enough for the Prophet (PBUH), it's good enough for any true believer. How can a Muslim argue against that?

 

 

 

 

[CTO]

We have a major problem in far North Isaan - many many girls being married at 13/14 15 is too old it seems.

 

This is a recent trend - the "girls" parents are the force behind it - wanting sin sot as a far amount of cash was floating around villages since the first 1 million baht village fund started (note also continued by Coup )

[Torneyboy]

Just way to young ...

[Julian2]

We have a major problem in far North Isaan - many many girls being married at 13/14 15 is too old it seems.

 

This is a recent trend - the "girls" parents are the force behind it - wanting sin sot as a far amount of cash was floating around villages since the first 1 million baht village fund started (note also continued by Coup )

The Hills Tribes are the problem up here, the Thai authorities tend to leave them alone on "cultural" issues and the girls are pretty well pregnant as soon as they're old enough. If you see a 12 year old with a baby she's usually not it's sister.

 

[JayT]

Muhammad married a 6 year old and shagged her when she was 9. If it's good enough for the Prophet (PBUH), it's good enough for any true believer. How can a Muslim argue against that?

 

What a man he must have been. No wonder he is so revered by so many people

 

[Flashermac]

<< Muhammad followed an Arab custom in marrying a child who had her first menstrual cycle. This action must be questioned, regardless of it being a cultural norm, because Muhammad's action and teachings on marriage established an Islamic precedent: a girl is judged an adult following her first menses, and is eligible for marriage and sexual relations. Thus Muslim men are allowed to marry and have intercourse with young girls who have happened to have an early first menstrual cycle. As will be shown, this leads to physical and psychological damage to the child.>>

 

 

Link

 

 

[Julian2]

I've never seen any textual Islamic support for their position, only conjecture. But the thought of their prophet committing such an act is embarrassing to them, so they invent, or re-write, documented Islamic history to make it more acceptable to their minds and the minds of other Western people as well.

 

You'd never catch Christians doing anything like that.

I wonder how old some of Solomon's wives were anyway?

[Flashermac]

Have you heard any Jews or Christians arguing for child marriages as divine lately?

 

 

p.s. From what I've read, in Biblical times Jewish women marriage at 14 to 16, not 9. Of course, even today some folks marry sort of young (think of banjos playing and kids born with webbed feet or toes).

 

<< Lewis' turbulent personal life was hidden from the public until a May 1958 British tour where Ray Berry, a news agency reporter at London Airport (the only journalist present), learned about Lewis' third wife, Myra Gale Brown. She was Lewis' first cousin once removed and only 13 years old. (Brown, Lewis, and his management all insisted she was 15.) Lewis was nearly 23 years old. The publicity caused an uproar and the tour was canceled after only three concerts. >>

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Lee_Lewis

 

 

[Zaad]

If only the girls had a choice...