A marriage certificate doesn’t make it any less pedophilia when a 49 year-old political leader marries a girl young enough to be his granddaughter:
Female senators, lawyers and doctors who are protesting say that they fear for the child’s health.
“What we are concerned with is that our minors, the girl child, should be allowed to mature, before going into marriage,” Mma Wokocha, President of the Women’s Medical Association and one of those behind the petition, told the BBC.
“This very evil act should not be seen to be perpetrated by one of our distinguished legislators … that is what we are saying.”
The senator is reported to have paid a dowry of $100,000 (£66,000) to the child’s parents – and to have brought the girl into Nigeria from Egypt.
The women’s groups want Mr Sani to be taken to court, to face a fine and a jail sentence.
Our reporter says the whereabouts of the teenager are unknown – and it is not clear whether she has any parent or guardian with her.
Newspaper reports have also accused the senator of having previously married a 15-year-old girl in 2006.
Sounds a lot expensive child prostitution to me, especially if it only took him four years to tire of his 15-year-old wife. People around him better keep their 8-year-olds under wraps at the rate he is going.
In case you missed the previous cases in Yemen, here is the 11-year-old girl who died, bludgeoned to death by penis:
The girl, said to have been married to a man in his 20s, died in the west of the country last week, the Arab Sisters Forum (Saf) rights group said.
A medical report by the hospital where she was treated said she had suffered a tear to her genitals and severe bleeding after intercourse, the group said.
The 11-year-old girl was married last year only under the condition that the adult husband would wait until she reached puberty to consummate the marriage. He did not wait, nor do many of the men who marry young brides, says Amal Basha, director of the Arabic Sisters Forum.
“She looked like she was butchered,” said the girl’s mother, Nijma Ahmed. The AP also cited police a report saying the husband forced himself on his young bride, feeling under pressure to prove his manhood.
An average of eight women die each day in Yemen due to child marriage, many of them in childbirth, according to the Arabic Sisters Forum. The group runs a hotline for victims of domestic violence and has been lobbying in support of a minimum marriage age now under consideration by the Yemeni parliament.
Pushing against the proposed law is the strong hand of Islamic conservatives in Yemen. Clerics have declared women like Amal Basha apostates from Islam for opposing child marriage, which they see as divinely ordained. The government, she says, is intimidated by the religious and tribal customs.
“They say this is Islamic…and they declared jihad against… the UN treaty on women’s rights,” she said.
“They say my campaign is a Western agenda, that it will lead to sex out-of-wedlock and prostitution,” Basha said.
Here is a sheikh who says it’s all about the rights of 13-year-old boys to have sex:
“I am against the child marriage law because it restrains the freedom of others. When a certain age [for marriage] is set, it violates the rights of others. For example, imagine a young man of 13 or 14 years of age who wants to have sex. … This is a violation of his rights,” Sheik Hamzi told The Times in an interview at his Sana home last week.
“It’s all a Western agenda they are following,” he said. “They get paid from the West to make us to believe in Western culture. This is very bad because our culture is different here.”
The best that could happen, in his opinion, is that the government shuts them down.
“No one wants to marry these women’s-rights activists anyway,” he said. “They’re just depressed that they are not married and jealous.” (oh, that is rich)
Would he allow his own young daughters to be married?
“No,” he says and looks at the two as they’re scurrying around in the room. “At this age, I don’t want them married.”
This is another area Jordan is a regional leader in championing the rights of girls and women in a culturally appropriate manner. You go, JO
Well, I guess no one cares to make a comment unless the burqa is involved.
But Back to the topic, those are not conservatives or extremists, most muslim clerics are like this, mohammad married a 7 year old girl and had sexual intercourse with her when she was 9, and no, girls didn’t age differently at that time, she was just like any other 9 yea old today.
So yes, if you want to end child marriage, you have to oppose the religion of peace, which is a good thing.
Just like fighting polygamy in the US – nothing will happen until the practicioners of such barbarity are rounded up and imprisoned, or killed when they resist arrest.
Mallee, I have not posted several things I had wanted to in the past due to the disproportionate reaction about hair coverings compared to the much bigger picture problems.
Not sure I like the tone of your comment direction…saying ‘most’ clerics are like this is not accurate. In the Levant region, there is very little marriage between such young girls and old men.
Among my friends, of whom are some very devout and conservative Muslims, I have not seen a marriage of a daughter before university graduation (and I have heard of American Christians who want their daughters to marry out of high school and refuse to them attend college!). That is why I would like to see Jordan’s example made a regional model in this, and manner other areas.
Marvin, I would like to see laws against this practice. Have polygamists been killed in the US? Mormon history?
Jordan walks a fine line. The law allows 15year old girls to be married off with a judge’s permission! This is legalizing pedophilia. It is physical, emotional and psychological rape of children. Being in our law, indicates a broken society. The fact that marriageable age is 18 and 15 is allowed with special permission from a judge is organized, legal sex trade. And just because many countries also legalize marriage at 14,15,16 doesn’t make it right. It’s time the global society as a whole relooked at the damage it encourages and condones.
Kids have a right to grow up before being stunted and saddled with adult responsibilities, and scarred with trauma they have no idea how to handle, passing the wrong forward.
It’s sad that Muslim clerics that are being listened to, are the ones who can’t understand Islam the way they should, some of those guys make me want to pile them up and set them on fire, they’re ignorant and some only think about women and ‘marriage’.
I once read this very thorough analysis and calculation of 3aa2esha’s age when Mohammad PBUH married her, it proved some Hadiths in Saheeh Al Bukhari wrong, and it showed, in different ways, that she was 18 at the time, not 11, not 9 and definitely not 6! it’s simple logic.
In my opinion (and I’m a Muslim, living in the middle east, I pray 5 times a day and cover my hair) a man who is attracted to a child should be locked up, I don’t know what 15 is considered but I still think it’s too young.
Nadine, thanks for adding your input. This: “this is legalizing pedophilia. It is physical, emotional and psychological rape of children. Being in our law, indicates a broken society. The fact that marriageable age is 18 and 15 is allowed with special permission from a judge is organized, legal sex trade.” hits it on two heads: it is two crimes, pedophilia and AND slave trade.
Rand, habeebti, thanks for adding your voice! (heh-heh, even the fire bit!)From a practicing, devout, covered Muslim woman, your opinion is weighty. I have heard about this Bukhari hadeeth re-analysis…it seems some leaders are not excited about it. Obviously, men such as those in the post, are sanctifying their crime behind it.
I wanted just to point out to Malle that Muhammed PBUH did not marry a 7 YO. Back then there were no vital records, that;s one thing the other thing is that many tried to do the calculations and came up with her right age which was 19 at that time and not 9 as people claim. This is the only time I’ve heard of the 7 YO thing. Two years later you’ll say she was 5. Aisha was also engaged to someone else before, the engagement was called off and then she was later on engaged to Muhammed PBUH which goes towards proving that she was older than what some books claim.
If you can read Arabic I can give you excerpts from historic books that states that her age was 19 when she was married.
On the other hand: According to history book Mariam (Mary) was engaged to Yosef el najjar (Joseph) do you know how old were each of them then?
Dawn, thanks for that input. I hope the word gets out to the men who interpret differently!