It’s about time for the Saudi National Society for Human Rights to recommend a ban on child marriages. The minimum age the group recommends, 15, is not much different from the minimum age in Europe or most American states under ‘special circumstances’. It’s a vast improvement over the eight- and nine-year-olds being married off by their cash-strapped fathers in the Kingdom at present.
NSHR to seek marriage ban on underaged girls
Muhammad Al-AneziDAMMAM – The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) is preparing to recommend to the higher authorities a ban on marriages of underaged girls; the society will seek to fix 15 years as the minimum marriageable age for girls. Dr. Saleh Al-Khathlan, Deputy Chairman of the NSHR, said the move was based on several court rulings on cases of underage girls married to men tens of years older than them, which have aroused debate in society.
In the past two months, there were 10 cases of underage marriages in Hail, Jizan, Asir, Taif and Unaiza. The Child Rights Agreement signed by the Kingdom in 1995 defines a child as below 18 years of age. According to the Shariah, marriage can be held but it can be consummated only when a girl reaches puberty. – Okaz/SG
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
January:01:2009 - 14:59
For the sake of our mothers and sisters, we should hope that this effort will succeed.
However, I anticipate that the ulemaa will disregard any such law, and do so with relative impunity.
January:01:2009 - 16:40
As far as I am aware, most Middle Eastern countries have ended this practice now. In my Middle Eastern country the age is now 18 (although some people do still falsify papers).
Expat 21
“Expat Abroad”
expat21.wordpress.com
January:01:2009 - 18:13
The Saudis can be compared to the Jews they always criticize.
I have heard time and time again Saudis say concerning Jews, “Never trust a Jew because they always go against what they agree upon”.
I think one of two things need to happen
A. Stop criticizing Jews for going against Agreements
OR
B. Simply not sign the Agreements (e.g. Child Rights Agreements, etc,) if one isn’t going to respect them.
Basically the moral of the story is how do you see the speck in the eye of your brother, but you fail to see the one in yours.
January:01:2009 - 18:15
I’d like to disagree that the ulemaa will disregard a law with even relative impunity. As more Saudi laws become codified, it will be harder for anyone to avoid being called to account. The fact that a law defines a practice as illegal means that anyone and everyone can determine when the line has been crossed and demand justice. After a few of the clerics get fired from their jobs, perhaps even imprisoned, others will take notice. As child marriage tends to be a rural phenomenon and as rural clerics tend to be pretty low on the hierarchy, those clerics could be called to account rather painlessly by the government.
January:01:2009 - 19:06
Has anyone heard of any updates in the codification progess?
Has anything been reported upon the progress of such?
It is such a wonderful to to have “someone print” in black and white aka…something else
“X has given 1000 gazillion dollars to X fund or X cause”
AND THEN?????
I wonder how many women are still sitting under the staircase in the courthouse in Riyadh…?
What I am saying is I would like to hear and see the progress of this project…wouldn’t the rest of you?
January:01:2009 - 22:21
The legal reform project is just getting under way. It’s starting with the formation of new courts. New laws will follow.
I think it’s all going to be too slow to please you, though. As you know, things change slowly in the Kingdom.
January:02:2009 - 03:29
I don’t know. The Kingdom outlawed slavery in the 60s, yet it doesn’t seem to stop some people from not only engaging in slavery (enslaving people like Anista Marie of Sri Lanka, who was falsely imprisoned an not paid for eight years in a villa in a Riyadh suburb) but to do it with impunity despite a “law” on the books for over 30 years. The woman who enslaved Marie was not punished. This happens a lot: somebody like a worker complains, the courts rule in worker’s favor, but the perpetrator is not punished (they perp may be required to pay arrears for back pay, but isn’t punished in a punitive sense.)
So I’m not too optimistic. This is the same crap the politicians were saying during the Civil Rights movement — thing move slowly, let’s do this slowly and carefully. This is what cause MLK, Jr. to write “Why We Can’t Wait” which addressed this very issue of officials wanting to take their sweet time while people suffer because of this lack of momentum or resolve. I think the comparison is apt — the officials only go as fast as whatever social pressure is exerted on them, and as we know Saudis aren’t allowed by law to exert social pressure.
And, yes, this pressure has to come form the Saudi themselves. As soon as anyone on the outside “criticizes” Saudi Arabia, Saudi seem to get very defensive. In one way it’s hard to care if the Saudis themselves don’t care enough to solve the problem. (There are plenty of people in the world who would actually appreciate outside attention, the Saudis are not one of them.) On the other hand, some of the things that happen are so horrendous that it’s hard not to care.
January:02:2009 - 06:40
PS: I should say I hope the King Abdullah Project on judicial reform corrects the problem of not punishing Saudis in all cases for breaking certain Saudi laws, like non payment of salary, putting to death minors and now the possibly violating a minimum age for marriage. Until people are actually punished (rather than just paying what’s due or simply annulling illegal marriages) there may not be any incentive (or dis-incentive) for at least trying to break the law. It’s a basic legal principle, right: pay what’s due and pay MORE for breaking the law in the first place. It’s called punitive fines in the case of civil lawsuits.
January:02:2009 - 08:37
With regard to my views on the ulemaa being able to disregard the law with impunity, I would simply note that all Saudi laws permit the law to be rendered nugatory in instances in which such a law conflicts with sharia.
The ulemaa decide what constitutes sharia, and thus formally are able to disregard with impunity any law, as long as they assert that such a conflict with sharia exists.
January:02:2009 - 10:32
I do think an exceptional personality might be able to speed things along. But if King Abdullah–who I do think exceptional–can’t get things moving very quickly, then I doubt that reform can be accomplished quickly.
I take your point about how MLK energized the issue, along with JFK and after his assassination, the efforts of LBJ.
But if those three had attempted to accomplish what they ended up doing, even 10 years earlier, they would have failed.
There has to be a national consensus–at least a minimal percentage of the population–before change can happen. I don’t think a sufficient number of Saudis are quite there yet, never mind those who are happy to be stuck in the past.
January:02:2009 - 10:35
@Andrew: I don’t think that’s what’s going on though. Clearly not paying your maid and locking her in your villa for eight years (which was one of the more egregious cases I can recall) has nothing to do with disregarding the law because the outlaw of slavery contradicts Shariah (quite the contrary, Shariah also views not paying your maid for eight years and locking her in your villa a crime). It has to do (in the case of non-payment of salary) with the Saudi system not prosecuting and sentencing to prison Saudi violators when they commit crimes against their non-Saudi staff.
In the case of child marriage (selling your girl into sexual and child-rearing bondage to your neighbor in exchange for her dowry money is against Shariah) I suggest that no matter what the law says if they don’t prosecute and imprison men who sell their daughters (please, can we call it what it is? This isn’t even forced marriage of minors. This is a father selling his young girl as chattel, a financial transaction, to man who will rape her the second she hits puberty and turn her into his baby machine.) You don’t even have to bring in the ulemaa’s judicial decisions. This is also a crime against Shariah that goes unpunished. It seems that the worst that happens is that the judge annuls the marriage. That’s really not good enough if you want the law to dissuade this behavior. There must be punitive measures. And they could be quite harsh: if a man enters into an illegitimate marriage with a young girl, then has sex with her, that could be construed as either rape or extramarital sex, right?
And in one recent high-profile case, the judge merely made the old pervert that bought the girl promise not to consummate the marriage (rape) her until she’s nine. This is heady stuff and it’s not something that people should be sitting around saying “oh, but things move slowly in the Kingdom. We should have empathy for the situation and understand how slow things progress.” That may be the reality, but people should be careful not to turn into apologists. These crimes are against Shariah as much as they are against secular law and common human decency. Judges who made bad judgments (like the judge who ordered the murdered of that 13 year old in Jizan) should be punished by the ulemaa, not coddled.
I think the biggest problem with the judicial system is wasta. Also I think judges should be required to work outside of the districts where they come from — this would prevent them from bias rulings in favor of their tribal brethren.
January:02:2009 - 11:08
John, I would agree with what you said, “I don’t think a sufficient number of Saudis are quite there yet, never mind those who are stuck in the past.”
One of the reasons they are not there yet is because those who speak boldly and openly on reform are sent to prison to be made an example of and interestingly enough many of them are professors
Short Story: “The Ditch”
Once upon a time a passerby was traveling through an unknown land. She was pondering and wondering why there was such “slow progress” in the Kingdom. As she walked she came upon some folks in a ditch. She knew for sure they had fallen into the ditch faster than they were getting out. A man deep in the ditch said to her “Falling into a ditch usually is a surprise but one with a clear sense of purpose will usually exhaust all of their vital energy to get out of it and of course there are always kind passersby who want to help too!” In fact, the passerby learned that it was the inhabitants who made the ditches in the first place. She also learned that there were already inhabitants enjoying the fruits on the trees surrounding the ditch while the others were cast down in the ditch. Thus, she realized the inhabitants had no real incentive to have the fallen pulled out of the ditch unless of course they could be of use.
The inhabitants would throw an occasional banana or apple down and of course there were those who were satisfied believing that they could never dig themselves out of the ditch and after all it was very safe and cozy and they did get some goods rained down on them now and again at no exhaust. The most striking part was that those who managed to muster the courage and strength to dig themselves out of the ditch were thrown into the dungeon! The ones who were pulled out by the inhabitants were appointed judges and other governmental officials.
I would like to see pictures of the formation of the new courts if that entails infrastructure. We need more details as I am sure the Saudi people themselves would probably want details of what type of “reform” is going on. Do you think information is available in Arabic at the government websites?
January:02:2009 - 16:47
I absolutely agree that there are things that should not be put on hold, until society is ready to adjust. I also agree that harsh prison sentences are required to catch the attention of those who would stray–including the clerics who perform or approve these marriages. Of course, there will be arguments about who will pay for the eleven children and three wives for which the miscreant is already responsible…
I agree, further, that wasta is a serious issue that needs addressing. But that is such a fundamental part of the social system, engrained long before Islam, that it will take more than a royal decree or a bunch of newspaper editorials to reform.
January:02:2009 - 16:51
I’d love to see the information on the reformed system, too! I haven’t found anything useful in Arabic and conclude that there’s nothing yet to show. It’s a work in progress. This article gives some details about the structure–as in replacing the Higher Judicial Council with a Supreme Court–but it’s hardly comprehensive. Again, I suspect the lack of information in the article reflects a lack of information in reality.
January:02:2009 - 23:00
I read this and several previous posts, and I have to wonder how significant progress on basic issues of human rights will ever be made in Saudi Arabia. I realize that these are issues not of Islam but of Wahhabism, which seems a perversion of the faith. I like the Saudi people, and I hope they can free themselves someday.
January:03:2009 - 06:46
@Tom: It’s also “tribalism,” which often seems ignored. I think that 13 year old kid in Jizan was probably executed because the judge was somehow linked to the family whose child was allegedly raped and murdered by the 13-year-old. I suspect as well that the judge who obnoxiously refused to annul an obviously illegal (secularly and under Shariah) marriage was probably somehow linked tribally to the pervert and the father who sold his daughter to him. Besides I’m not even sure anymore what “wahhabism” is — or rather what the difference is between wahhabism and strict salafist orthodoxy: they seem identical to me. A much larger problem — and one I think the Saudi themselves recognize — is inter-tribal relations. That’s why I suggest that judges be removed from districts where they were born and sent to areas where they have no roots — mix it up a bit to break those tribal biases that occur at a local level. Hey, it’s worked for militaries, where conscripts have been deployed out of areas where they were recruited in order to break any tribal or ethnic biases they might have if they remained to serve in their communities. For example, Mexico has historically done this to prevent indigenous solidarity movements within their military ranks. If the public servant serves in an area where s/he has tribal, ethnic or sectarian roots, s/he ends up serving local tribal, ethnic or sectarian interests rather than the greater national good. That’s a recipe for corruption, bias, revolt and/or discrimination.
January:03:2009 - 12:10
Thank you for the article link
Chucho I think you are right concerning the distinction between wahabis and salafists being a blur. I always thought I was surrounded more by salafists whatever that meant. I have learned that being labeled a wahabist is kinda of like an insult. What I mean is people do not walk around proudly proclaiming “Hey I am a Wahabi”. I have heard people proudly saying they were Salafees”.
The article stated, “Saudi judicial reforms will start Jan. 1 and the process to bring about structural and procedural changes will take 20 years, said Minister of Justice Sheikh Abdullah Aal Al-Shiekh.”
Translation provided by Sparky, “It will take 20 years and work will begin in year 19″
Just kidding just kidding