Yemen: 8 year old girl dies from internal injuries on weddin

[AtroposHeart]

http://www.examiner.com/article/yemen-8 ... ding-night

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Michael StoneHumanist Examiner

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September 9, 2013

An eight year old bride in Yemen died from internal injuries on her wedding night, bleeding to death after deep vaginal tearing caused by sex with her 40 year old husband.

The girl, identified only by the name Rawan, died in Hardh in the governorate of Hajjah in northwestern Yemen, according to a report issued by UPI on Sunday, Sept. 8.

Activists in the region want to put an end to the practice of marrying young girls, and have called for police to arrest the girl's husband and family. Nevertheless, the forced marriage of child brides in Yemen remains a socially accepted custom in many rural areas.

Indeed, the practice has deep cultural and religious roots, and is widespread in Yemen. A February 2009 law set the minimum age for marriage at 17, but it was repealed after some conservative lawmakers called it un-Islamic.

In particular, a prominent Islamic cleric, Abdulmajeed al-Zindani, issued a fatwa in support of the practice, declaring supporters of a ban on child brides to be apostates, and ultimately leading a successful campaign against legislation that would prevent adult men from marrying children.

The issue of Yemen's child bride problem made headlines three years ago when an 8-year-old girl went to court, demanding a judge dissolve her marriage to a man in his 30s. The girl eventually won a divorce, and legislators began looking at ways to curb the practice. However, they have so far been unsuccessful. Currently the law states that parents should decide when a daughter marries.

Unfortunately, reports indicate more than a quarter of Yemen’s females marry before age 15.

Oh, just fuck this. And don't use Allah as an excuse to give away little girls to men old enough to be their father.

[sparkles]

There are no words...

[Ellimenopy]

What the fuck is wrong with these people?

[doggie]

What the fuck is wrong with these people?

religion and beliefs

[PurpleSheepleEater]

So gross and sad. That poor poor child. :cry:

[anjulibai]

Damn....

[Tesseract]

Unconscionable and heartbreaking - just so wrong on every level. I have an 8 yr. old... Damn...

[polecat]

This is horrific.

[Sola]

I would thoroughly recommend 'I am Nujood; age ten and divorced' by Nujood Ali. It is written by her and is simplistic, and then you realise that she's a child who was raped on her wedding night when she was 8. Her strength is incredible and her determination toget her divorce wwas amazing. Child marriage is fairly common in Yemen.

[ILoveJellybeans]

OMG the poor baby. How horrible. :(

[Khan]

I cannot believe that any deity would want children to be raped. These kids should be playing and going to school, not locked away as "brides". It makes me so sick.

[linnea27]

Oh my god.

[mrs]

I cannot understand why a grown man would do that to a child. Why would parents allow this to happen?

Edited to reword.

[Jana814]

So sad and horrible!! That poor child.

[Chowder Head]

For all that is good. Have mercy. I just cant even comprehend the mind set that allows a child to be married to an adult man. The terror that child must have felt..just...uggg

[Ariel]

:cry:

Her 'husband' must have been a sadist and a monster for her to be injured that severely. Or rather, an even bigger monster/sadist than all the other rapist husbands that don't kill their child brides.

Does this happen throughout Yemen, or is it restricted to certain economic/social classes? I can see the upper classes going through with this sort of thing because the wife doesn't need to work, but the working and middle class having more standard marriages because both partners need to participate in the workforce.

[Ariel]

I found this Op/Ed piece on Nujood and I thought it was very interested in relation to the quiverfull movement.

There are a couple of reasons countries that marginalize women often end up unstable.

First, those countries usually have very high birth rates, and that means a youth bulge in the population. One of the factors that most correlates to social conflict is the proportion of young men ages 15 to 24.

Second, those countries also tend to practice polygamy and have higher death rates for girls. That means fewer marriageable women — and more frustrated bachelors to be recruited by extremists.

So educating Nujood and giving her a chance to become a lawyer — her dream — isn’t just a matter of fairness. It’s also a way to help tame the entire country.

Consider Bangladesh. After it split off from Pakistan, Bangladesh began to educate girls in a way that Pakistan has never done. The educated women staffed an emerging garment industry and civil society, and those educated women are one reason Bangladesh is today far more stable than Pakistan.

source: nytimes.com/2010/03/04/opinion/04kristof.html

[Rescinded and Mended]

This poor child, this is just so utterly heartbreaking. I hate that she was so cruelly used and disposed of like so much trash.

I am reminded of one of the Princess books I read by Jean Sasson, I think it was the Sultana one. Sultana talks about how one woman married into the Al-Saud family. The man she married brutalized her so savagely on their wedding night that she forever required the use of a colostomy bag after the event. In many ways, Sultana tries to be honest in her attempts to defend women's rights in Saudi Arabia, but I clearly remember where she handwaved the incident away, concluding that "she never heard anything else about him being cruel to her, so he must have treated her well during their marriage."

Here's a review/summary of the Princess books:

dooyoo.co.uk/biography/daughters-of-arabia-jean-sasson/443346/

[doggie]

Was it yemen where they did this because they could not afford girl children so sold them into marriage?

[snarktastic]

Does this happen throughout Yemen, or is it restricted to certain economic/social classes? I can see the upper classes going through with this sort of thing because the wife doesn't need to work, but the working and middle class having more standard marriages because both partners need to participate in the workforce.

I saw a BBC programme on Afghanistan where it said that this happens quite a bit there because the families are so desperately poor that selling a very young daughter into marriage is the only way they can see to keep the family fed.

That poor little girl. And her poor Mum, who I'm guessing didn't have much of a say in this.

[already hungover]

This truly makes me nauseated, and I generally have a pretty strong stomach. That poor girl. I feel for her family too, as I can't imagine living in such poverty that selling a child into marriage is the only option.

[flyawaystray]

That's so sad :(

I agree with the little girl being sold as a wife because the family needed money.

Why couldn't the man have waited until at least the girl was older? She probably hadn't gone through puberty, either. Poor thing.

[laura oz]

The mother in me wants his heads on a plate. Sick bastard, twisted system, heartbreaking.

[sparkles]

If this poor child was sold into marriage, I have to wonder if the people who brought her into to this world even care that she's dead. Or are they just worried that they'll have to repay the money because they sold her sick fuck of a groom damaged goods.

[lilith]

I don't understand how anyone can find a religious justification for marrying prepubescent children. I know the justification usually used is that Mohammed married Aisha when she was nine, although many Muslim traditions claim that the marriage was unconsummated until she was older. But surely even the very religious and very uneducated would recognise puberty as the earliest point where a child could be considered "adult" and eligible to marry? Isn't marriage meant to be about reproduction? They aren't even paying lip service to that when they marry girls under 13.