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Hardrock69
03-17-2010, 10:24 AM
Child marriage still an issue in Saudi Arabia (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/13/IN5D1CD71L.DTL)



Child marriage still an issue in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia has a serious child-marriage problem.

It's emblematic of the nation's struggle between modernity and traditional Islam. But the lives of thousands of little girls are being destroyed as the Saudi government ponderously debates a solution.

Child marriage has been acceptable, even encouraged, in many Islamic states since the religion was born. After all, among the prophet Muhammad's dozen wives was Aisha, who is believed to have been 6 or 7 years old when the two were married. But in Saudi Arabia, at least, the practice slammed headlong into modern values last spring, when a Saudi court refused to nullify the marriage of an 8-year-old girl from Unaiza to a man in his late 50s.

Over the past few years, long-standing social practices in Saudi Arabia have been thrown into the glare of world opinion, embarrassing the state and forcing at least cosmetic changes.

In 2006, for example, a judge sentenced a young woman to 200 lashes and several months in prison for being alone in a car with a man she was not related to, where they were attacked and she was raped. Opprobrium from around the world rained down on Riyadh. President George W. Bush asked: "What happens if this happens to my daughter? I'd be angry at a state that does not support the victim." King Abdullah commuted the sentence.

In 2008, one of the nation's most senior religious authorities directed that two reporters for a mainstream Saudi newspaper be executed for publishing stories suggesting that religions other than Islam are worthy of respect. Once again, the cleric's remark spawned international outrage, and the cleric's order was ignored. Then came last spring's court ruling on that 8-year-old wife.

For centuries, clerics on the Arabian Peninsula have been issuing execution orders for religious "crimes"; women have been marginalized and punished to protect male malefactors; parents have sold little girls, too young to ride a bike, to elderly men. Hardly ever did anyone outside the region notice. But that was before the Internet, before blogs and Twitter, YouTube and Facebook - before almost anything that happened anywhere in the world was broadcast instantly to almost anyone who cared.

The hook that caught people's attention in last year's case was the judge's refusal to grant the 8-year-old a divorce, indicating that the state endorsed child marriage. The judge was willing to order the man not to have sex with the girl until she reached puberty, four or five years later. (If he violated that, who would know?) Once again, Saudi Arabia faced rebukes from around the world, prompting the justice minister, Mohammed Al Issa, to suggest that it was time for child marriage to end.

His ministry, he told a Saudi newspaper, intended to stipulate 18 as the minimum age for marriage, "to put an end to arbitrariness by parents and guardians in marrying off minor girls." His intent, he added, was to "preserve the rights, to end the negative aspects of underage girls' marriage." Like unfavorable news coverage?

Well, that was almost a year ago. Still no law has emanated from the government, almost certainly because senior clerics control large areas of domestic policy, and most of them, including the chief cleric, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Sheikh, oppose this change in tradition.

Now a spate of new cases has been thrown up for public scrutiny. Last month, a 12-year-old girl, fighting to divorce an 80-year-old man who paid her father $22,000 for permission to marry her, suddenly dropped her divorce request. She failed to appear in court on the day the judge was supposed to issue his decision. One can only guess what happened, but most 12-year-olds would find it difficult to reject adult advice or commands about something like this.

Saudi Arabia is hardly the only state facing this problem. Last year, Turkey made it legal for 12-year-olds to marry, if their parents agree. The Turkish Statistical Institute estimates that one-third of the state's brides are under 18. In Yemen and Bangladesh, even among some sects in Burma, child marriage is commonplace. The victims, in those places and elsewhere: little girls who are forced into wasted, often miserable, lives.

Saudi Arabia has publicly committed to change its law, to protect the children. For the Kingdom, this is hard. But if Saudi Arabia, of all places, can change the law and recognize that little girls have the right to grow up normally, that will be an act heard around the world.

Joel Brinkley, a professor of journalism at Stanford University, is a former foreign correspondent for the New York Times.

Anonymous
03-17-2010, 06:18 PM
I got it!

Let's publicize this at the same time we get children OUT of that place.

When paedophiles all around learn of it, they'll move in. By then, all children will be safely out of that place, so we can BOMB THAT SHIT OUT OF EXISTENCE!

In one master stroke, no more paedophiles, no more religious extremists.

Cheers! :bottle:

thome
03-17-2010, 07:46 PM
Could just drive to Utah, and a couple other "ways" of life that oppress women.

But, it is about oil... I guess even in Utah.

No Harsh on your thread i'm just say'n

Blackflag
03-17-2010, 07:57 PM
This thread is going to be a disaster.

Little Texan
03-17-2010, 08:05 PM
Andy Gaylor probably booked the next flight to Saudi Arabia upon reading this.

LoungeMachine
03-17-2010, 08:07 PM
This thread is going to be a disaster.

I'm inclined to re-word the thread title just because I dont like the thought of web crawlers or search engines picking it up....

:gulp:

thoughts anyone?

FORD
03-17-2010, 08:13 PM
I'm inclined to re-word the thread title just because I dont like the thought of web crawlers or search engines picking it up....



....Or tempting Andy Pedobear to come back with a new alias

jhale667
03-17-2010, 08:23 PM
I'm inclined to re-word the thread title just because I dont like the thought of web crawlers or search engines picking it up....

:gulp:

thoughts anyone?

I agree. Some will cry "censorship" :rolleyes: but does the site really need that kind of attention?

As long as it's a clever "edit"... ;)

LoungeMachine
03-17-2010, 08:29 PM
To hell with it...

Let 'em cry.

:gulp:

Better safe than sorry on this topic.

Hardrock69
03-17-2010, 09:38 PM
If you want to reword it, Lounge, be my guest. Even the greatest writers on earth had fucking editors at their publishing company.

Something that the mentally challenged around here would have a hard time comprehending. I will go over the top on some shit. But I try to have sense about it.
This IS a public website, by the way.

And not only that, I do not own it. So do whatever the fuck you want. At least I have sense enough not to cry over something like that.

Even though I did not write the article, and I posted the link to the original page, ya never know when someone on the fringe is going to get hot and bothered because someone mentioned something that means nothing to anyone except a deranged religious lunatic.

Hey, I bet the reason these clerics don't want to change the law is that they are married to kids under the age of 10 themselves.

Unchainme
03-17-2010, 11:02 PM
So that's where Joe Blunder went.

standin
03-18-2010, 12:47 AM
If you want to reword it, Lounge, be my guest. Even the greatest writers on earth had fucking editors at their publishing company.

Something that the mentally challenged around here would have a hard time comprehending. I will go over the top on some shit. But I try to have sense about it.
This IS a public website, by the way.

And not only that, I do not own it. So do whatever the fuck you want. At least I have sense enough not to cry over something like that.

Even though I did not write the article, and I posted the link to the original page, ya never know when someone on the fringe is going to get hot and bothered because someone mentioned something that means nothing to anyone except a deranged religious lunatic.

Hey, I bet the reason these clerics don't want to change the law is that they are married to kids under the age of 10 themselves.
Many rules are made with the best intention. Adoption was not a legal protective option at one point of time.

In an ideal world (that does not exist) a male or female would provide family protection and support to an unprovided female or male. In addition, the elder would respect the laws of nature and not sexually molest the younger against their informed consent, wishes, or respectability.

This would be equivalent to Woody Allen and his marriage to the girl he raised.
Under these terms, Woody Allen could be excused. Under the terms that he was a father to the female, his actions are unforgivable.

In any case a male or female that would go against nature and commit rape by trickery, manipulation, or force is committing a sexual crime. One must have informed consent of the female or male to have sexual relations, vowed or un-vowed, papered or un-papered.

Humans should be monitored for loophole violations, especially ones that effect lives.

Seshmeister
03-18-2010, 07:12 AM
This would be equivalent to Woody Allen and his marriage to the girl he raised.
Under these terms, Woody Allen could be excused. Under the terms that he was a father to the female, his actions are unforgivable.


Woody Allen didn't live with the girl and wasn't her adopted father.

He was the father of her step brother by adoption, in other words he had a son with the woman who adopted her.

I'm not saying he behaved well but they have been married for 12 years now so it seems to have worked out.

Seshmeister
03-18-2010, 07:23 AM
Actually not working perfectly since I see the son disowned him is still estranged.