I think Ms. Al-Harbi says it about as well as it could be said…
Save the child bride
Khalaf Al-Harbi | Okaz, klfhrbe@gmail.comBy what reason or logic do we allow a young elementary schoolgirl to marry a man in his 80s? How could this happen without anyone raising a finger? Is it appropriate to publish this news item on the front page while the entire society considers it a personal affair?
Paradoxically, the groom insisted that he was not yet 80! Maybe he is three or four days less than 18. He boasted to the bride’s aunt that his marriage to her niece was not against Islam since it was based on mutual acceptance.
He said he proposed to her elder sister who turned down the offer because she was busy studying. He said the father then offered him her younger sister and allowed him to see her under Shariah law.
What is this? An older sister refuses to marry an old man and so the father willingly presents her younger sister. When the old groom was allowed to look at his would-be child bride, did he not notice any disapproval or sign of rejection on her face?
How do you expect a child to react? Who will tell us the difference between paternity and selling vegetables on the streets?
Before reading about this sad story, I was willing to believe that some foreign human rights organizations were targeting us. But after coming across this story, I thanked God that I was not a member of a human rights organization because I would definitely have targeted us.
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September:08:2009 - 17:16
An excellent article by Ms Al-Harbi. Thanks. My favourite sentences:
“Who will tell us the difference between paternity and selling vegetables on the streets?”
“But after coming across this story, I thanked God that I was not a member of a human rights organization because I would definitely have targeted us.”
Alas, as Ms Al-Harbi probably knows full well, but declines to include, Saudi and other Muslim countries are signatories to the International Convention on Children but ratified it with the inclusion of an condition (allowed) that the article are not in contravention of Islamic Family Law. Thus, children in Muslim countries are protected from becoming child soldiers (in theory)for example, but not from being married off at whatever age unless the country has legal minimum ages for marriage, which most do, and Saudi doesn’t.
Saudi national law must change on this, in line with other Muslim countries which have modified their Islamic/Sharia family law to include minimum ages for marriage (usually 15-18 for girls, and 17-21 for boys, if there are to be no more news stories like this. This type of story is sensational (especially given the man’s age and the father’s behaviour) and gets the ire of many, but in fact the more common form of early marriage eg girl 15 (or lying about it) and boy 18 (ditto) also is harmful in that it causes pre-emption of school for both, early pregnancy in a still developing adolescent body, early parenthood with undeveloped parenting skills, early entry into the job market with minimal room for advancement,etc.
September:08:2009 - 23:30
O.K. I lived in Saudi long enough to learn about what ISLAM says:
NO GIRL CAN BE FORCED TO MARRY AGAINST HER WILL! (That is why I am pissed half the time because I keep hearing how fair and great Islam is and I see very little of that put into practice!)
One would question whether this young child would be competent or able to make her own choice apart from her father’s influence and other BS spread by idiots. The problem is that you have unqualified imans and judges who would ignore her and only listen and talk to her father because after all she is a FEMALE and HE IS HER GUARDIAN and as SUCH HE knows BEST! Still Islam says she is the one who chooses, whether previously married or not, who the man will be who will share his life with her! It could be she says I don’t want a man. If previously unmarried, her father has to bless (grant his permission)to the marriage. However, the father cannot make a decision for her…If his wife were to speak up against him he’d probably divorce her or beat her. I will tell you…I wouldn’t be taking my clothes off and beating my chest like Tarzan…If I were the mother of the girl, I would take a heavy frying pan to the man (father’s head)!!!!
Like I have said, if I took any girl from any social class in Saudi and family background and simply showed her a picture of a 70 or 80 year man and said what do you think about marrying him and naturally bearing his children; I guarantee all girls ranging from puberty to age at least (20) would say, “LA”. (NO) I sure hope this girl that they are referring to has reached puberty!?? I think most women who have a desire to have children have a wish that the father of their children will at least be able to see them through elementary school and be able to take an ACTIVE role in raising his children. That is unless the girl is barren and is only interested in his money or the sense of security she would get from an older man. BUT isn’t that what parents are supposed to be to their children their fortress and their sense of security???
I just don’t believe a girl of that age and a man of that age would have any compatiblity whatsoever and it wrong unless that young child would argue her case convincingly (with no traces of coercion) for wanting to marry him. I doubt that would ever happen!
September:08:2009 - 23:41
Also perhaps population control could be a solution to the problem of breeding like mice. Quality over Quanity!
For God’s sake people if you can’t take care of your kids and think marrying them off (or selling them off as referenced) is some sort of solution I have to say that I think is it grossly UNGODLY! UNISLAMIC and purely a Disgusting SHAME!
September:09:2009 - 01:00
So…how do you feel about this Sparky?
I pretty much agree with everything you said.
September:09:2009 - 04:31
While I understand Sparky’s anger and sometimes would like to vent mine loudly when I read such stories, I will just say how relieved I am to see Ms Al Harbi’s article; may the number of people thinking like her grow fast in Muslim countries and include as many men as women !
September:09:2009 - 08:35
Sparky– I believe the girl is 10, but remember she is definitely pre-pubertal; and in these cases the marriage is legal but not consummated until after menarche, when the child bride goes from her father’s home to her husband’s to begin her “conjugal duties”. Most countries, except Muslim ones, have different ages for the minimum age for consensual sex, and for consent to marriage. As you rightly, and colourfully, pointed out, consent must be voluntary, and a young child has limited if any ability to give true voluntary consent, not having the cognitive appreciation of time (eg a lifetime commitment), or sex (hopefully) or parenting; and being totally dependent on the omnipresent parents’ goodwill for food, shelter and a positive emotional environment. Cognitive immaturity + dependence (coercion material and emotional) = involuntary “consent”.
Sandy–yes I was wondering too! LOL
Michel–Amen/Ameen.
September:14:2009 - 21:24
I have learned that Muhammed married a child bride. I must say being a victim of rape at 14. There is a sickness here that I cannot define in words.
Any country that legalizes pedophilia is a very sick and twisted world obviously run by men who are evil.
What will it take for women’s rights and human decency to hit Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Islamic world???????????
September:14:2009 - 21:27
What will it take for women’s rights and human decency to hit Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Islamic world???????????
September:14:2009 - 21:40
Thanks for your opinion.
You may wish to read the arguments about when he consummated that marriage. You may also look at the ages of various queens in European history. Twelve and thirteen is not unheard of, even though it was taking place 800 years after Mohammed.
September:14:2009 - 21:43
It depends on how you describe human rights and who’s doing the describing.
Saudi women are very actively debating what rights they think they have and how to gain the freedom to exercise them. Saudi Arabia–despite claims to the contrary–is actually not a Taleban state. It’s a very different state from those of the West, but it operates on an entirely different legal system. That legal system is both under challenge and is being reformed now.
Keep reading Crossroads Arabia to keep up with what is happening there, including on the women’s and children’s rights fronts.
September:14:2009 - 22:45
There is also a lot of evidence that puts Aisha’s age at around 18. For instance she remembers and took part in things that would be impossible were she as young as the Bukhari hadith places her. I’m inclined to think she was older.
September:14:2009 - 23:01
The reality is the body of a child and the mind of a child is never ready to be an adult, as far as 12 and 13 year old Queens, well that was equally heinous. Though the argument was often said many years ago people lived to be only in their 30′s before being considered of old age. The truth be told 12- 15 is heinous then and today. But in today’s day and age when we consider ourselves civilized and knowlegedeable there is no excuse that this should continue.
Making headlines today on CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/14/yemen.childbirth.death/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn
By Mohammed Jamjoom
CNN
AMMAN, Jordan (CNN) — A 12-year-old Yemeni girl, who was forced into marriage, died during a painful childbirth that also killed her baby, a children’s rights group said Monday.
Fawziya Ammodi struggled for three days in labor, before dying of severe bleeding at a hospital on Friday, said the Seyaj Organization for the Protection of Children.
“Although the cause of her death was lack of medical care, the real case was the lack of education in Yemen and the fact that child marriages keep happening,” said Seyaj President Ahmed al-Qureshi.
Born into an impoverished family in Hodeidah, Fawziya was forced to drop out of school and married off to a 24-year-old man last year, al-Qureshi said.
Child brides are commonplace in Yemen, especially in the Red Sea Coast where tribal customs hold sway. Hodeidah is the fourth largest city in Yemen and an important port.
More than half of all young Yemeni girls are married off before the age of 18 — many times to older men, some with more than one wife, a study by Sanaa University found.
September:14:2009 - 23:25
I don’t think it is fair to say that in the past when Queens/Kings or others married very young it is equally heinous. They were raised to be adults by that time. It was not the same. Of course, even then, there were differences and more care taken with “elites”.
One could argue that what is happening in Yemen is somewhat similar. We may think we live in modern times that we know better- but in some ways they live in a time warp. I hope very much with education will come massive intervention. But the practice is very intertwined with many tribal ways, and I am glad the issue is beginning to get the press and attention it deserves. What happened to Fawziya was wrong.
One thing that puzzles me in all this- and maybe addressing it would discourage this practice- but Islamically speaking the dowry goes to the BRIDE- not her family. With this practice of it going to the family, we have what is essentially the sale of young girls.
September:15:2009 - 01:12
I agree with the issue of the sale of young girls,it blows me away. India has this practice running rampant. I speak for many miilions of young female victims.
I can also say that there is a twisted sense in all of media that unfortunately American women have been a party too. The sexualization of everything, the objectification of everything. But even in countries who don’t exploit women and girls in bikinis or ads that are risque’ or pointless sex dubbed in a movie thwarting the plot just to bring in moviegoers.
Even in countries where men tout how women are more respectable, covered almost head to toe….they are even less respected. Honor Killings, rape and torture, and yes child brides.
The arguments of Mohammed can go back and forth of the age of his bride, even she is quoted as saying he raised her from her childhood. But aside from that, does no-one question the fact that he abandoned his first wife and family and then suddenly comes upon this youthful girl and marries her instead.
Look. I think its wonderful that Mohammed brought many back to God, but in truth he had fallacies. He has led many Islamic men to justify their dysfunctional behaviors. But alas, biblically speaking so did Solomon and David.
September:15:2009 - 07:21
He did not abandon his first wife. His marriage to Khadija, his first wife was never polygamous, she passed away.
I wouldn’t word it that he has “led many Islamic men to justify their dysfuntional behaviors”- but I would have to say that many Islamic men have used certain interpretations of what he did to justify their dysfunction. It’s almost the same thing- but I never like to blame anyone for someone elses disfunction.
If these men wanted to follow the example of the prophet- they could marry a much older woman- and remain completely faithful to her- instead they chose to emulate interpretations of very different things.
September:15:2009 - 08:03
Lori, I’d like to suggest you expand your source materials. Not only did the Prophet’s first wife die when he was still a young man, but he took new and additional wives entirely within his culture’s norms. What he did that was not normal was to limit the number of wives a man could have to four. (And yes, he excused himself from that requirement for reasons that don’t entirely make sense to me.) Prior to that, there was no limit. He also required that all wives be treated equally–perhaps an impossible demand, but still a demand. That, too, was revolutionary.
Look for books written by, say, Maxime Rodinson, that come at the biography in a disinterested, unbiased manner. His book is excellent for giving the context of the period and social environment. Rodinson’s book, btw, is banned in Saudi Arabia, so you know it’s not sycophantic.
The point of this post–and the many before it: Search on ‘child marriage’ and ‘Saudi marriage’–is that Saudis are discomforted by the idea of child marriage. It’s not easy to make it go away, though. For 1400 years, they’d been told that is was perfectly fine, no problem at all. Now, in part due to outside pressures, they’re being told that it isn’t, that they’ve been mistaken for nearly 1.5 milllennia. It’s on a parallel with the Southern American states being told that slavery was wrong, even though it had been in practice for thousands of years. Slavery was even authorized in the New Testament! What’s going on in Saudi Arabia now is a shifting of cultural and social values and it doesn’t happen quickly or easily or painlessly. It probably won’t take a civil war, however.
September:15:2009 - 13:46
I agree that Saudi is going through a shift in cultural norms, and it is important to note that as a country, ie a centralized government it is very young compared to the tribal culture on which it is based.
Pedophilia and hebephilia are distinct and usually marked by menarche as the dividing line. In agrarian societies, and traditional ones, as Saudi still largely is, and Yemen certainly is, a girl becomes marriageable after menarche.
Mohamed had a great and monogamous love marriage with Khadija, and after her death married Aisha, the daughter of his great friend, in part as a way to stop grieving. Later marriages were political alliances, or charity cases. He seems to have operated on tribal rather than Islamic precepts in the no. of marriages he had.
Only 2-12% of Saudi men are in polygynous relationships and of those 90% have only one other wife, 7% 2 and 3% 4.
While I disagree with such early marriages and pregnancies it does seem as if news items skew the norms to the negative, as everywhere, especially reporting marriages where there is a wide age discrepancy, or a dubious father, or a medical tragedy. Perhaps it is deliberate or else for the best in terms of pushing for reform, and to establish minimum ages of marriage.
I’m not in agreement that the Prophet induced men to worse behaviour, whereas in fact both the message and his behaviour were an improvement on that of pre-Islamic Arabia. He may have had human failings/foibles, but was self-reflective and widely respected even before he became a Prophet. One is free to believe Islam contains fallacies, but promotion of pedophilia isn’t one of them.
September:15:2009 - 20:36
Khadija died in 619, and soon Muhammad remarried. Unlike in his marriage with Khadija, he chose to have several wives, 9 is reported. Some of these wives were ways of knotting closer relations with powerful people in the society, and some were widows without economical support.
http://www.allaboutturkey.com/muhammed.htm
September:15:2009 - 21:38
Hi, I don’t mean to make this a rigorous debate. I have been a victim of rape at 14, and so the issue is one of a personal matter to me. I know how heinous it feels to be forced into sexuality as a child with some maturity yet no where near the maturity of one who should be sexual. In my case it was a 19 year old who was intoxicated who forced himself upon me. It was 1976, as my mother accounts sex education was non existent, the only accounts were mickey and minnie mouse dating and kissing. I had no idea what was happening to me other than horriffic pain, terror and my screams to try to get free.
In reference to Mohammed I want to stress a pattern in societies that leads to child victimization. I understand there is cultural norms involved, but alas, as you said slavery was a cultural norm once too.I have seen various books account that Mohammed left to find solitude for a lengthy time. But the accounts of other issues seem to vary as well.
Here is one “Unbiased-Biographical” account:
He who wished to have Meccah at his mercy had but to stop their caravans. But before this plan occurred to their illustrious Exile, the carrying trade had furnished Meccah with considerable wealth: and gold that had been dug out of mines in the country of Sulaim was sometimes brought to Meccah, where it could be profitably employed. Ayeshah, the Prophets girl-wife perhaps inclined to exaggerate- estimated her father’s property in the “Days of Ignorance” at a million dirhems-
http://www.scribd.com/doc/14048398/Life-of-Mohammed-An-unbiased-Biography-of-the-Prophet-by-DS-Margoliouth
pg 44 of the online site, page 14 of the text.
I do study religions as God is very dear to my heart, especially in the context of what has happened in my life.
Thanks for listening.
September:15:2009 - 23:57
Lori, I can understand why this subject resonates so strongly for you. You have experienced something no one should be subjected too. I hope your life’s journey brings you peace, resolution and joy.
September:16:2009 - 19:24
Lori–I am very sorry for the rape that you suffered, and I do hope that you have healed from it as well as possible.
Regarding Aisha, there is wide discrepancy about the age that she was at marriage, and the later age of the consummation of that major (definitely after menarche). She was a child-bride depending on what her age of marriage was, and certainly in comparison to Khadija, reputed to be 40 at the time of her marriage to the Prophet.
While no one would argue that a 12-14 year old is mature, many US States and Canada include these ages as mature enough to consent to sex with a partner less than 2 years older. Many Islamic countries, and others around the world (notably some of the verrrrry Roman Catholic ones in Latin America) have very young ages of consent to marriage (without parental consent), eg. 15 for females. Part of the tragedy of these stories in Saudi is that they are preventable by instituting a minimum age for marriage, in accordance with Sharia family law, as most Muslim countries have done, and where the trend is to raise, not lower it.
I do hope you are doing well despite your early trauma, and appreciate your willingness to discuss this topic civilly.
September:16:2009 - 22:02
I would say that no child aged 12-15 is old enough to consent to sex even if their partner is only 2 years older.
So the question is what do you do with the kids that have sex at that young age. Would you say it crosses lines? My response is sure.Even without the trauma of rape. With sexuality comes so much that is weighted, it is an area of intimacy that should be taken with responsibility and a level of love and commitment that children are incapable of.
I know now that young people today are more sexually active then in 1976. But I blame society for that as well.
Does it make a difference if there is a 17 year old pressuring a 15 year old or a 19 year old pressuring a 15 year old. I would say yes and no. If the older 19 year old is the male, well his body is stronger and more physically developed by then. He then is a young man, he can vote and drive and gamble in the United States. His mind is geared towards his future career and college. The female would still be into high school, unsure of adult decisions most often and their consequences long term. At 17, most kids don’t look past next week. At 19 they can even look far enough into their future to care about what life might be like in a year.
When I was a child there was a term called “Jail Bait” for those under the age of 18. That which I just stated is part of the reason.
Thank you for responding and listening to my positions.The truth is the healing of rape is never completed work, sadly, there are memories and moments that live forever housed in the body, mind heart and soul. The body houses memories too, and old injuries effect us long after. As for the heart, mind and soul, My soul has God, and this has comforted me a great deal in my pain. My mind and heart, well there is a sorrow, a loss undescribable of a violently shattered innocence, of the youth in me that was stolen. That I never knew the joy of choice with my first sexual intimacy. It was not based on the love we all dream of since childhood. It was violent, painful and heartwrenching. I never had a chance to grow up normal after that, my innocence was in a state of confusion and I knew not any way to put the pieces back together. Alas like Humpty Dumpty I know my innocence cannot ever be put back together. But I can be. Oh I may be broken and now handicapped yes, but at least I have all my pieces in one place and I am a more focused on how to manuever around the parts of me that are injured. The greatest joys for me are when I can still have moments of shear joy in the place of belief in the miracles of life and the goodness of life.
For a long time after my abuses I felt the whole world had failed me. There are days when I still see and feel that. Society is such a mess and so are people and their values today. But in my aging and maturing and the years of working on me I have grown closer to God and because of my spiritual path I have found that I no longer fail me even if society and people do.
I respect for Saudi Arabia they are in a growing place. For the sake of their young I pray they grow into this common sense in a shorter time than it takes the young to grow up.