10 year old Yemen child bride granted divorce from 30+ year old man

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-childbride11-2008jun11,0,5271790.story

Yemen child bride Nujood Ali gets divorce

By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 11, 2008

SANA, YEMEN -- The little girl was waist-high, so small that the lawyers, clerks and judges hurrying through the courthouse almost missed her.

As lunchtime arrived and the crowds of noisy men and women cleared away, a curious judge asked her what she was doing sitting alone on a bench.

"I came to get a divorce," 10-year-old Nujood Ali told the jurist.

Her impoverished parents had married her off to a man more than three times her age, who beat her and forced her to have sex, she explained. When she told her father and mother that she wanted out of the marriage, they refused to help. So an aunt provided her with bus money to travel to court and seek a divorce.

Within days of that April 2 encounter, Nujood's tale and the plight of child brides in Yemen made international headlines. And thanks to the efforts of human rights lawyer Shada Nasser, who took up her cause, the girl at the center of the story has begun to overcome her trauma and dream of a better life.

[d_b]

1. ...

wtf is wrong with this world...

[Xenotime]

21. No shit. Why are no charges being brought up against the parents?

[REP]

2. Hey, it's cultural and must be tolerated when it's done to women, right?

Horrible story, and worse, there's plenty more where that came from. Nujood Ali, however, is an astoundingly brave person. I feel like standing and cheering for her.

[gaspee]

4. Cultural relativism

Is a sickness. Treating half the population as slaves and breeding animals is wrong no matter what context you try to put it in.

[REP]

5. Couldn't agree more

There is no context that makes this - or any other abuse of women - right.

[timtom]

22. Please don't misinterpret this.

But, what would you, or anyone, suggest as a cultural (and/or moral) absolute?

[momster]

25. Education for Women

Not only does it raise the age at which women marry, it raises the age at which they have their first child. If you want equality, lower birth rates, and a corresponding rise in the per capita wealth of poor countries, educate your women. You also get -- at no extra charge! -- an increase in the number of women who can survive the death of a spouse by the ability to earn their own living...even if it isn't much...eliminating the need for her to marry again just to feed her children which, strangely enough, leads to more children. Fewer children and the ability of women to fend for themselves means a drop in overall poverty and hunger. Which means fewer children married off far too young as in this case just because her parents cannot afford to keep her.

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[gaspee]

33. I realize I didn't answer your actual question

How about

Murder
Slavery
Genocide

I think those are pretty absolute.

Women live in slavery in half the world. It's not acceptable.

[WildEyedLiberal]

8. I'm surprised I haven't seen a reply to that effect yet.

It usually doesn't take long for the "we have to respect their culture!!!" mush-for-brains to come out in threads like this. Maybe since this poor girl is a child, they'll actually realize how sick and wrong this "custom" is, but I guarantee that if this girl were 18, they'd be out in force. Yes, I CAN and WILL judge cultures that systematically treat women like slaves and cattle.

[treestar]

26. At least she was married

:sarcasm:

When it happens here, there's no such responsibility of the abuser for the abused!

But this is not typical or a normal part of that culture.

[gaspee]

3. Wow

What an amazing little girl!

I have very little money but I would donate to a fund for this brave child.

[China_cat]

6. Except that she'll probably be dead in less than a year

a victim of an 'honor' killing for not living up to her marriage vows.

[gaspee]

7. If anyone

Should be given refugee status, it's this child. Hopefully someone will look out for her - it's obvious her parents never will.

I'd adopt her myself if it were possible, but according to my brother-in-law who is Syrian, adoption is frowned upon in muslim culture. Guardianship is allowed but adoption, specifically changing the child's name, is not allowed. I guess it has to do with property rights (as in women and children are property even when the male who owns them is dead.)

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JCMach1]

18. ummm, no... It's child sexual exploitation plain and simple

[Recursion]

24. No, it's a world poverty thing

This is just as forbidden in Islam as it is everywhere else (you can marry a child but she can't live with you and you can't consummate it until after puberty; you just have to support her).

Everywhere people are poor, children are exploited.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

28. Is it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YFZ_Ranch#April_2008_raid

[Rosemary2205]

10. This is not culture - it is poverty.

When people are that kind of poor, children become marketable resources. Add to it a culture that encourages it, a government that either approves or makes it next to impossible for the victims to find justice.

Not so very long ago the US of A was that kind of poor - people allowed their kids to be shackled to machines for 12 hours a day, sent children 100's of miles away or even down the street to be indentured servants, sent them down into the coal mines.

We would not be much better now if it wasn't for the rise of those "damn commie unions" and a bunch of folks willing to get their heads bashed in for economic justice.

[REP]

11. Not quite

During the dark days of American industry, the adults killed themselves working horrible jobs, too. Children worked because everybody in the family had to. Poor families were coerced into relinquishing babies to be adopted by wealthy couples, but that is far different than selling a 10 year old to be a wife so that the parents can eat. The basic model most people accept is that parents protect children, not sell them to be fucked by old men when things get tough. And it is cultural when there's a market for 10 year brides.

Duh.

[Rosemary2205]

12. My husband's great grandma was 12.

In Kentucky. The man was 32, the previous wife died in childbirth. He paid her family for her. She was lucky and he was a decent man to her from all accounts.

[REP]

14. Anecdote is not the plural of data

This charming family tale, even if true, cannot be documented. Even documented, it is an exception, not the rule. I know you want to believe that poverty = selling your child to be raped so everything is fine and dandy and no judgments should be made, but not everyone can stand by and let things like this happen in the name of kumbaya and fluffy clouds and pretty rainbows.

[Rosemary2205]

20. Who's defending it?

I'm saying blaming it on Islam or "middle easterners" or whatever is wrong. It's not "them" it's "human". When families get poor enough they begin to view their children as resources. That alone leads to all sorts of nasty things.

[WildEyedLiberal]

13. Not to mention that the "parents" in this case didn't appear to give two shits about the girl

The parents not only sold her off to be raped by a nasty old man, they didn't have a shred of sympathy or any desire to help her escape the situation even after she came to them desperate for help. I guess it would have impugned their "honor" to remove their 10 year old CHILD from an abusive rapist's clutches.

Yes, poor children had it pretty terrible in various points in American history, but there's a HUGE difference between poverty and being sold into sex slavery. I can only conclude that those not able to grasp the difference are so paranoid of appearing "intolerant" that they will bend over backwards to draw parallels where there aren't any and insist that the US/Europe/the West is "just as bad" when it patently isn't.

[REP]

16. Well, you're just being intolerant by not tolerating abuse in the name of culture

I don't know what that makes you, but I know it's bad. Even in my culture.








:)

[JCMach1]

19. You are correct...

[fasttense]

15. That polygamous Mormon sect in Texas would understand this.

But those little girls in Texas don't get a chance at divorce.

[JCMach1]

17. Note, this is unacceptable in Islam for starters

However, exploitation of children in countries where per capita income is so low is rampant.


Income in Yemen for 2007 was $2,400 per year... :(

That is the Mean income... many would be poorer...

http://siakhenn.tripod.com/capita.html

[Douglas Carpenter]

23. thank you. I have lived half my life in the Islamic world. This is EXTREMELY RARE!!

Anyone who has lived in ANY poor third world society whether Islamic or ANY OTHER - KNOWS PERFECTLY WELL that other shocking conditions of exploitation of children are pandemic.

As an example, in the Christian Philippines where I have also lived, it is very common for children who for one reason or another have no parents to take care of them - end up living and working as servants to other families. There is no adequately funded foster care system or government social services, so that is what happens.

The West was also a place of horrid exploitation of children one hundred years ago - when most people were extremely poor and there were enormous gaps between the social-economic classes.

It is truly sad when the unfortunate conditions in which more than half the world live are used by racist, bigots and hatemongers of the West to promote racism, bigotry and hate-mongering.

[gaspee]

30. So you're saying

The way women and girls are treated under Islam and Sharia is fine?

Stoning, honor killings, mandatory virginity or death, women as the property of men.

*That* behavior is not uncommon. Not uncommon at all.

I'm willing to say it - IT IS WRONG - I don't give a fig what their culture says - treating half your population as slaves and breeding animals is WRONG.

10 year old child brides may be an extreme, but for it to happen at all, women have to already be considered property.

And no, I'm not letting the christians off the hook. If the christian radicals were actually able to control the rest of the population, we'd be seeing similar occurances.

But we don't live by biblical law and women FOUGHT for the right to be full human beings - many giving up their lives in the fight.

The way women are treated in half the world makes me sick.

[Douglas Carpenter]

34. your impression of the Islamic world is simply way out of wack!!

Only a small part of the Islamic world lives under Talaban style sharia law. Most of the Islamic world is rapidly modernizing. Approximately 50% of University students in the Arab and Islamic world are woman. Approximately 50% of medical doctors in the Arab and Islamic world are woman.

It seems as though many Americans imagine the entire Islamic world to be like a cross between Disney's Aladdin and life under the Talaban.

This is simply not the case.

This is a heinous and racist fantasy meant to demonize a people.

It would be like someone in the Middle East imagining that Westerners are all fornicating on the streets everywhere. Or perhaps it is comparable to the way some racist imagine all African-Americans men are raping their daughters.

[Rosemary2205]

38. Nobody said any such thing and you know it.

[Bucky]

27. So she's back on the singles' scene now?

Bad Bucky. :hide: Bad, bad Bucky.

[progressoid]

31. She should disown her parents too!

Good god.

[truebrit71]

32. What the fuck is wrong with some people....this kind of shit gets me so angry...

...And kudos for her and her aunt to stand up for her rights like this...

Her parents need to be flogged..as does the paedophile that "married" her... :grr:

[renate]

35. what an amazing girl!

To go by herself, to a courthouse, in a country where women are second-class citizens, to ask for a divorce... all by herself, I just can't get over that... what courage. Probably mixed with a little innocence and naivete, not knowing the odds against her... although it worked out for her in the end.

I love her.

[truebrit71]

36. I agree....

...that takes REAL guts and determination...

[erpowers]

37. Read A Book About a Story Like This

When I was in college I read a book in which the story line was similar to this story. A young girl, not that young, was sold into marriage to a very old man who did on occasion beat her. This girls story is sad and things like this should be banned by international law. It would be nice if some of out politicans took up that cause.