Another example of child marriage after the pattern of Muhammad's marriage to Aisha, and a symptom a culture that often treats women as possessions. "'My father sold me'," from Agence France-Presse:
Shabana, A pretty Afghan teenager with a modern haircut, was 12 years old when she was forced to marry a man 38 years her senior to settle her father's 600-dollar gambling debt. Two years later, she is unhappy and angry. She doesn't like her husband, 52-year-old farmer Mohammad Asef.
"He is wild - he destroyed my hopes," she said in their humble mudbrick home in the northern province of Balkh, speaking out only when Asef went into another room to take a call. She doesn't get on with her husband's first wife, who is aged 42 and lives with them. And she is disgusted with her father. "He sold me," she told AFP.
Her father and husband once farmed together, growing wheat and opium poppies on a plot in neighbouring Jawzjan province. Two years ago, after the harvest was in, Asef went to Balkh's Mazar-i-Sharif city to visit his family. "When I came back, my father-in-law had gambled away all the harvest," he said. "He promised me to get my money in one month but he couldn't find it. I knew he wouldn't because he is a very poor man. It was about 600 dollars. When he couldn't find the money, I married his 12-year-old daughter in compensation."
Shabana, who likes to wear jeans and read novels and newspapers, was taken out of school. Now she spends most of her time doing chores in the simple house for which Asef cannot yet afford doors. The illegal practise of exchanging girls to settle debts, including those owed to opium farmers, or to settle disputes between clans persists around the country - with the latter more common in the north. There are no statistics partly because there are no resources for collecting such data, said Ministry of Women's Affairs legal advisor Sayed Abdul Wahab Rahmani. And in areas hit by the Taleban-led insurgency, the precarious security situation would prevent such research, he said.
About 670 women went to the ministry in the capital last year with complaints ranging from forced marriage to domestic violence, Rahmani said, by way of offering some sort of figure. The number is without doubt a fraction of the total number of cases in largely rural and destitute Afghanistan, where men hold sway and often break the law with impunity, including by marrying underage girls or using them to settle debts or feuds.
About 57 per cent of girls are married before the legal age of 16, according to statistics from the women's ministry and women's groups. Between 60 and 80 per cent of all marriages are believed to be 'forced' - a term that covers a range of practises including marrying off girls to repay debts or without their consent, according to the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. This is one of the main factors behind girls and women running away from home or committing suicide, including by setting themselves alight by dousing themselves in fuel and igniting it with a match.
In Afghanistan, as in many Asian and African cultures, men pay the family of their wives-to-be an agreed sum, sometimes called the bride price, as well as the cost of the wedding which can also run into thousands of dollars - the average in Kabul is 4,000 dollars. This can be an enormous sum in one of the poorest countries in the world where a low-grade civil servant earns about 60 dollars a month.
To be able to afford his own wife, Abdul Raheem, also from Balkh province, says he wants to marry off his 12-year-old sister as soon as he can. The family of the woman he has set his heart on wants 6,000 dollars for her. Raheem, who earns 60 dollars a month as a cleaner in a police station in Mazar, has saved 2,000 dollars. "It's very difficult for me to find 4,000 dollars," he said. But if he could marry off his sister, "then I can marry my girlfriend," he told AFP.
Cripes! Why didn't U.S & Coalition DEMAND Karzai
abide by Democratic & modern norms instead of allowing the geezer to keep Afghanistan in Stone Age under barbaric Sharia Law??
Shame on you George Bush & Tony Blair.
Hey, where are the RABID, man-hating, ultra left wing, loony-tune, Marxist feminists? Why aren't they complaining about this??
Come on, this is just exchanging a debt for a dowery. Simple economics. You guys are acting like this is chattel slavery.
(Light the blue touchpaper and retire smartly.)
The sad thing is that this sort of thing goes on in the West too. I had a very strong suspicion that an African/Muslim family in a town where I once lived (in the US) sold their 14 year old daughter in marriage to a cousin in another state. They had her write letters several months later to couple of her friends, saying that she was living with a cousin and going to a new school. I am sure that, by now, she has had 3 or 4 children and regular beatings, before, during and after her pregnancies. Stay tune for more of the wonderful aspects of Muslim life, such as forced marriages and honor killings to increase in the West as the Muslim population rises.
On reread, there are several aspects of this story which seem a bit strange. I don't doubt the child was sold into marriage. However, it does seem a bit odd that she has a 'modern' haircut, jeans, reads novels, her husband has a phone, and, yet, the story implies that they live in abject poverty as her husband cannot afford doors for their simple mud brick home. Hopefully, if that girl can manage a modern haircut and jeans, perhaps she can find her way to Kabul and a ticket out of that hellhole. She seems to have some spirit left in her..I pray that she can use her energy and anger to free herself.
Yes, where are the activist feminists when women and girls really need them? Maybe they are too busy "having it all" to have any energy left to confront "cultural differences".
Sounds like a very bad reality tv show. I am torn when I read about these tragic stories----terrible for the girls involved but such a ripe opportunity for mocking the men.
These guys are pathetic. The create and contribute nothing. Could these guys find even one wife if they didn't live in societies where woman are slaves. There is an opening here for a stand-up comedian to make a big name for him or herself---if they are brave enough.
maryrose,
I think child protective service should be called.
Even if it has been a few years ago, they will look into it.
Don't let them get away with it...they may have younger girls in waiting...
What pigs these fathers are.
And of course, this was all possible thanks to our oh so helpful comrades in arms in Islamabad, who haven't done a damned thing from 1994, when their Taliban creation took power, to now, when they are trying to get back to power one disctrict at a time va the usual islamist terror. No aid at all ever to these guys would clearly be devine. But so would even getting to the point where we make all fiscal, military and humanitarian aid conditional upon using their influence to stop bulls**t like this from continuing in Afghanistan, as opposed to using their ISI to obliterate in a near genocidal manner autonomous movements in Balochistan, Sindh and Kashmir, often among peoples who are in fact the harshest oponents of the Taliban and like minded jihadists.
Needless to say, the same goes for Malaysia, Northern Nigeria, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, *Palestine*, Turkey and Bangladesh. Things like this will quite possible tolerated asd long as Islam is in practice anywhere at any time. But to pretend we don't have the influence to stop it is asinine; we need to recognize who in the islamic world is serious about putting a stop to it, almost always of course religous and cultural minroties, apostates and secularists, and whose trying to keeo in alive behind our backs. Case in point, Pakiworld, or better put, Occupied Northwest India.
This story disgusts me, but the way to solve it is through diplomatic pressure and economic sanctions. I hope our troops are not going to stay there until stories like this don't occur, otherwise our troops will be there forever.
Point out how different their values are from ours, teach the infidels where the religious justification comes from, say clearly that we believe this is wrong and we will not allow it's practitioners into our country, put pressure on them to change in their country, BUT no more military invasions of Islamic nations to "save" them from themselves.
[Of course, we originally went into Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban. But that was accomplished many years ago. We're still there, and I'm afraid the unspoken goal has changed to waiting for the Afghans to take on our cultural values: government based on democracy rather than theocracy, tolerance of non-Islamic faiths, no underage marriage, etc. I think we can safely say now that Afghans and Iraqis are not "just like us", and are only being held captive by a few extremist leaders.]
According to the story, "About 57 per cent of girls are married before the legal age of 16". Either there's alot of gambling debts, or this story is not being completely honest about the reason it's happening, and the gambling story is just BS justification. When over half the population is breaking the law, we can assume it's not just a few extremists, it's a widespread religious/cultural norm.
Islam does not violate human rights, becuse humans have no rights.
very painful story.
Such a beautiful Culture and Religion.
What's not to admire?
We'll be importing "Muslim refugees" who will bring this culture with them in the years to come.
Back to the lex talionis days.
"perhaps she can find her way to Kabul and a ticket out of that hellhole."
No. She'll be pregnant soon, and her hopes of a free life will be over.
He is wild - he destroyed my hopes.
* 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 *
Now that Shabana is 15 yrs old, she can kick back and read the Koran and observe the Sunnah. Wonder if she'll rankle when she comes across God's commandment in 33:21?
According to the story, "About 57 per cent of girls are married before the legal age of 16". Either there's alot of gambling debts, or this story is not being completely honest about the reason it's happening, and the gambling story is just BS justification. When over half the population is breaking the law, we can assume it's not just a few extremists, it's a widespread religious/cultural norm.
* 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 *
Whole lotta kiddie ped sex going on. Whole lotta observance of Koran 33:21 one of the world's great religions that has been highjacked by a tiny minority of extremists going on.
Since it appears the Administration had no intention of doing the job in Afghanistan seriously (installing a secular government and forcing it to do our biding, or selse), it should have been hit harder, from the air, until anyone who raised a fist was gone. Including Bin Laden, who should have been hunted down to the inner sanctums of Pakistan's parliament, if necessary.
Them we should have promised the same merciless destruction -and worse- if they rose another Taliban again.
As it is, we should get Bin Laden and move on.
Telling our enemies that they are free to torment one another, but no us.
And have predator drones become the national bird of the region.
If Muslims want to behave inhumanly to their own, then their own will have to fight it.
We can supply moral support, as they sort it all out, lashing out the horrors spawned by the Koran, until Islam either reforms, or implodes.
I have no sympathy for those who will not fight as hard as we have.
I have a daughter aged 12 years. The thought of selling her to be married at her current age is hateful to me. Notice the explanation for doing so is always about what the head of the 'family' wants: relieve debt, get his own 12 year old girlfriend, et cetera.
I never knew hate until my 39th year when I understood Islam for what it is. Islam is a plague on this Earth and is evil. It must be delegitimized all over the world.
I don't care what she has. She is being raped every day she lives. So Rape continues to be common behavior in the Muslim world.
Hey patriot I well tell you were us feminist are. Hiding. We know we can yell at Christianity all day long and not have any judgement. So we get to go around feeling pretty good about our "rebellion". Christian men don't have the time to fuck around with feminist. So feminist talk in vacuum. Get a real problem that is Islam with violent men who are willing to kill to keep women from basic rights, and all the feminist show they are true cowards. I am a feminist and a Christian so I will be the first to sell my "sisters" out on false accusations against Christianity and silence in the face of Islam's female lynching. See Christian Hoff Sommers for hope. I do hope we will not be cowards for long.