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12 year old files for divorce

Darth Rotor

Salted Sith Cynic
Darth Rotor
Joined
Aug 4, 2006
Messages
38,527
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36717454/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/

I can see the proud parents now:

*Sob*

Our little girl's all growed up, divorcing men like a real grown up gal ...*​

Actually, her dad might be worried about losing that $23,000 dowry. :p

Report initially from UK news organ Telegraph. Salient points are:

  1. 12-year-old Saudi Arabian girl successfully won a divorce from her 80-year-old husband, which legal success "could prompt the Arab kingdom to introduce a minimum marriage age."
  2. She was 11 when she was wed against her wishes to her father's cousin last year
  3. Her father was paid a $23,350 dowry.
  4. Human Rights Commission {in Saudi Arabia} calls for a legal minimum age of 16 in the kingdom.
  5. ... some judges and clerics cite the Prophet Muhammad's marriage to a 9-year-old as justification for child brides.
  6. Sheikh Abdullah al-Manie, a senior Saudi cleric, earlier this year slammed the comparison, saying the prophet's marriage occurred centuries ago and could not be used to justify marriages today.
A tip o' the turban to Sheikh Abdullah al-Manie.

DR
 
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Here's what I don't understand.

I understand pedophiles are going to exist. There are sick people in the world and that just can't be helped.

But what I do not, cannot understand is how entire SOCIETIES can look at a child and say "Yes, it is appropriate for a man to have sex with this girl." There was a case in Yemen about a 9 year old who was married when she was 8 who was able to get a divorce.

Now I understand that not everyone in the country agrees that this is okay, and in fact there are people within countries like Yemen and Saudi Arabia and other nations with similar laws trying to stop the practice of child brides.

But ENOUGH of their society goes along with it that it has been legal and practiced for this long. In Yemen I believe over a quarter of all girls are married before they are 15.

I mean, how can this happen? How can there be places where it is legal to marry and have sex with 8 year olds? How can enough people get behind this that it is actually a phenomenon that is widespread and in many places socially acceptable? How is it that there are places in the world where pedophelia is actually legal and parents give their daughters over to pedophiles?
 
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kerikiwi said:
So you wouldn't agree with Abdullah al-manie?
Click to expand...

Of course I agree.

I was pointing out where they get their justification for such an immoral act from.
Religions can screw up whole societies, not just individuals.
 
Schrodinger's Cat said:
I mean, how can this happen? How can there be places where it is legal to marry and have sex with 8 year olds? How can enough people get behind this that it is actually a phenomenon that is widespread and in many places socially acceptable? How is it that there are places in the world where pedophelia is actually legal and parents give their daughters over to pedophiles?
Click to expand...
Be fair, there's a huge difference between marriage and sex (as any married person should know).

The practice of child marriage has been present in many cultures, including Western cultures, for many centuries prior to the modern era. Most often it was politically motivated, and done to merge family resources and establish blood ties between tribes. In some cases, it has also been used for resolution of debts, monetary or social. Sex was typically not an issue until well after adolescence (and sometimes not even then).

Commoditization of female offspring is an old and well-established tradition. After all, not being able to hold property or become soldiers, what else are they good for?
Darth Rotor said:
... some judges and clerics cite the Prophet Muhammad's marriage to a 9-year-old as justification for child brides.
Click to expand...
Although the Prophet married Aliya at 9, Hadith mentions that he waited until she was 11 before having sex with her. After all, that's an important distinction.

<sarcasm captioned for the humour impaired>
 
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luchog said:
Be fair, there's a huge difference between marriage and sex (as any married person should know).

The practice of child marriage has been present in many cultures, including Western cultures, for many centuries prior to the modern era. Most often it was politically motivated, and done to merge family resources and establish blood ties between tribes. In some cases, it has also been used for resolution of debts, monetary or social. Sex was typically not an issue until well after adolescence (and sometimes not even then).

Commoditization of female offspring is an old and well-established tradition. After all, not being able to hold property or become soldiers, what else are they good for?

Although the Prophet married Aliya at 9, Hadith mentions that he waited until she was 11 before having sex with her. After all, that's an important distinction.

<sarcasm captioned for the humour impaired>
Click to expand...

But the fact is that as soon as she's married her husband has the RIGHT to have sex with her. I have done a lot of volunteer work with various human rights organizations and have heard story after story of very young girls being brutally raped on their wedding night. On NPR the other day too, they had a news story in which they interviewed several child brides (who had since won divorces) who had been married at or under the age of 10 and describe being raped on their wedding nights and being beaten when they resisted. It was just horrific. I cannot fathom being a child whose PARENTS handed them over to be raped. It just is so sick to me. I mean, to know that the people who are supposed to protect you have put you into this situation...it's just too tragic for me to really wrap my head around it.

Also, in the recent story of a 13 year old girl from Yemen who bled to death after being brutally raped by her new husband...she had initially resisted having sex with her and he did not rape her under way. But her parents and others in her community put pressure on her to submit to him, saying that she would shame the family if she did not have sex with her new husband (though I will at least admit that they stated it was ultimately her choice when to have sex, even if the marriage was not her choice, but they put enormous pressure on her to make that choice). So, though this is only one part of the world, in her case any ways, she absolutely was expected to have sex when she was married.
 
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What I don't understand is; how can they take some aspects of their faith and say, "well, gee that was a long time ago, and they just didn't know any better," when it comes to practices that are no longer socially acceptable, but when viewing the holy book on the whole, they take it as undeniable fact?
 
What I don't understand is; how can they take some aspects of their faith and say, "well, gee that was a long time ago, and they just didn't know any better," when it comes to practices that are no longer socially acceptable, but when viewing the holy book on the whole, they take it as undeniable fact?
Click to expand...
That's one of the bigger problems with holy people -- they're to be considered both Men of their Time and perfect role models at the same time.
 
But here's another question....don't these people have the biological drive to protect their young? I mean, that just seems like a part of nature, a part of the human condition. How can you be so religious (and I realize this applies not only to Muslims) that your religious believes supercede your instinct to nurture and protect your young, which is one of the most basic instincts that we have?

I mean, obviously child abuse happens in secular contexts. But I just don't believe (and I have nothing to back this up, it's just a guess) that all the parents who subject their daughters to this would have been child abusers in a secular context.
 
Schrodinger's Cat said:
But here's another question....don't these people have the biological drive to protect their young? I mean, that just seems like a part of nature, a part of the human condition. How can you be so religious (and I realize this applies not only to Muslims) that your religious believes supercede your instinct to nurture and protect your young, which is one of the most basic instincts that we have?

I mean, obviously child abuse happens in secular contexts. But I just don't believe (and I have nothing to back this up, it's just a guess) that all the parents who subject their daughters to this would have been child abusers in a secular context.
Click to expand...

Fifty years ago, some Western parents would start to worry about marrying off their daughters as they reached a certain age.

What kills me is ... 80 year old cousin. (Distant cousin, I hope, the Arabs are big on family trees and who is related to whom).

Wife.

My mind doesn't wrap around that too well.

DR
 
dio said:
Their religion's book says it's OK, so it's OK. Simple as that.
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It probably helps that part of the package of accepting the cult's teachings is the part where women are less like people and more like furniture.
 
luchog said:
Although the Prophet married Aliya at 9, Hadith mentions that he waited until she was 11 before having sex with her. After all, that's an important distinction.

<sarcasm captioned for the humour impaired>
Click to expand...

I would guess, as is supposed to occur in such arranged child marriages, that this is when she got her first period, and thus was considered a woman. So it would be an important distinction.

Not condoning, just pointing it out.
 
Schrodinger's Cat said:
But here's another question....don't these people have the biological drive to protect their young? I mean, that just seems like a part of nature, a part of the human condition. How can you be so religious (and I realize this applies not only to Muslims) that your religious believes supercede your instinct to nurture and protect your young, which is one of the most basic instincts that we have?

I mean, obviously child abuse happens in secular contexts. But I just don't believe (and I have nothing to back this up, it's just a guess) that all the parents who subject their daughters to this would have been child abusers in a secular context.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure about this. Within the secular context, women are devalued. If they are devalued enough that men are seen as weak for forming strong attachments, then a father will not form a bond with a daughter. Since the mother has no power, she has no way to protect the daughter. The cultural context in which this devaluation occurs is social although it may be influenced by religion. Nearly every society on earth has, at some point, seen women as somehow less than men. This child abuse is only the most extreme example.

The society itself needs to change. Religion makes that more difficult because it is the best tool for keeping these archaic societal biases in place.
 
Cainkane1 said:
That little girl was sold to that old buzzard. Women in Islam are treated no better than cattle. Tragic.
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It's not just women, though. You can't treat only women like cattle without starting to treat everyone like cattle. Which is why it's not just women and girls who get sexually abused in such tribal Islamic societies (though they bear the worst of it), but boys too. And of course, there's spillover into non-sexual behavior too. It's not a coincidence that groups which so devalue the worth of women will sanction indiscriminate violence as well.
 
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