When I was ten years old, I had a board game called The Bride Game. My friends and I spent hours using it to “plan” our weddings and fought to get the coveted “Formal Evening” wedding – when it was too hot outside to play kick the can and freeze tag. I literally feel sick reading this story of a “child bride” -
“When I got married, I was afraid. I didn’t want to leave home. I wanted to stay with my brothers and sisters and my mom and dad,” she said, speaking to CNN with the permission of her parents.
“I didn’t want to sleep with him, but he forced me to. He hit me, insulted me.”
… Nujood then turned to her family for mercy.
“When I heard, my heart burned for her; he wasn’t supposed to sleep with her,” said Nujood’s mother, who asked not to be identified.
But, initially, she also told her daughter she could not help her — that she belonged to her husband now.
What in the hell kind of mother would refuse to help her child in this circumstance?! I can’t comprehend it. Forget culture. Forget custom. Forget religious mandates. This is her baby.
Nujood’s father, Ali Mohammed Ahdal, said he is angry about what happened to his daughter. “He was a criminal, a criminal. He did hateful things to her,” he said. “He didn’t keep his promise to me that he wouldn’t go near her until she was 20.”
He’s ANGRY? I own two cars older than this child. What was he thinking? This is not a religion, it is a mental illness. Because neither one of these parents adults – I don’t know what I can call them without swearing – DID anything. And as it turns out, there was something they could have done.
Nujood said she made up her mind to escape from her husband, describing how on a visit to her parents’ home she broke free and traveled to the central courthouse across town and demanded to speak to a judge.
“He asked me, ‘What do you want?’ And I said, ‘I want a divorce.’ And he said, ‘You’re married?’ And I said, ‘Yes,’” she recalled.
What unfolded in those few days in April gripped the country on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula.
Read the rest. Whatever we can do to modernize Yemen – and for that matter, Islam – must be done. It’s not only a practical imperative, it’s a moral one. And while I’m all in favor of sticks, carrots are good too – like the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act of 2007 -
Authorizes the President to provide assistance, including through multilateral, nongovernmental, and faith-based organizations, to prevent child marriage in developing countries and to promote the educational, health, economic, social, and legal empowerment of girls and women. Sets forth priority assistance criteria. Directs the President, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), to establish a multi-year strategy to prevent child marriage in developing countries and to promote the empowerment of girls at risk of child marriage, including by addressing the unique needs and potentials of eight to 18 year old girls. Amends the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to require that Department of State country reports on human rights practices include a description of the status of child marriage for countries with specified rates of child marriage. Defines “child marriage.”
I would fine tune this some and also block foreign aid to countries that don’t have a public education program against child marriage and female genital mutilation, but it’s not a bad start.
Recent Comments