Yemen's child bride case: "A lot of people in the public don't think that this is wrong or that what happened to her was abuse"

And what this article ignores is the role of Muhammad's marriage to Aisha -- consummated when she was nine -- in why the practice of child marriage not only persists, but is so often praised in the Islamic world.

Nujood Ali Update. "Child bride gets divorced after rape, beatings," by Paula Newton for CNN, July 16:

SANAA, Yemen (CNN) -- Nujood Ali is 10 years old, but she already has been married and divorced. It was an arranged marriage in which she said a husband three times her age routinely beat and raped her.
"When I got married, I was afraid. I didn't want to leave home. I wanted to stay with my brothers and sisters and my mom and dad," she said, speaking to CNN with the permission of her parents.
"I didn't want to sleep with him, but he forced me to. He hit me, insulted me." [...]
Nujood's parents married her off in February to a man in his 30s whom she describes as old and ugly.
Her parents said they thought they were putting her in the care of her husband's family, but Nujood said he would often beat her into submission.
Nujood then turned to her family for mercy.
"When I heard, my heart burned for her; he wasn't supposed to sleep with her," said Nujood's mother, who asked not to be identified.
But, initially, she also told her daughter she could not help her -- that she belonged to her husband now.
Nujood's father, Ali Mohammed Ahdal, said he is angry about what happened to his daughter. "He was a criminal, a criminal. He did hateful things to her," he said. "He didn't keep his promise to me that he wouldn't go near her until she was 20."
When contacted by CNN, the girl's former husband declined to comment.
Nujood's parents, like so many others in Yemen, struck a social bargain when they decided to have their daughter wed. More than half of all Yemeni girls are married off before the age of 18, according to Oxfam International, a nonprofit group that fights global poverty and injustice.
Many times girls are forced to marry older men, including some who already have at least one wife, Oxfam said. According to tribal customs, the girls are no longer viewed as a financial or moral burden to their parents.

No mention of Islam and polygamy.

"There is always a fear that the girl will do something to dishonor the family: She will run away with a guy, she will have relations with a boy. So this is always the phobia that the families have," said Suha Bashren of Oxfam International. [...]
The Yemeni government is holding legal and religious workshops to try to deal with the issue of early marriage. But experts say marrying off a young daughter is generally still seen as the right thing to do.
"A lot of people in the public don't think that this is wrong or that what happened to her was abuse," Bashren said.
In Yemen, there is nothing new or extraordinary about Nujood's story because children have been married off for generations. The country's legal minimum age for marriage was 15 till a decade ago, when the law was changed to allow for children even younger to be wed. [...]
Nujood got her divorce, but based on the principles of Islamic Sharia law, her husband was compensated, not prosecuted. Nujood was ordered to pay him more than $200. The human rights lawyer who represented her donated the money.
Posted by Marisol on July 16, 2008 12:54 PM | 12 Comments
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12 Comments

undaunted | July 16, 2008 1:13 PM

Phobia? An irrational fear?

It's not that, at all. It's a conscious decision Muslims make day after misguided day, century after confused century, to obey the whims of their unjust and merciless "god".

Celsius | July 16, 2008 1:14 PM

It's only rape if there were 4 male muslim witnesses (of good character) to the rape.

Otherwise, it's business as usual.

gravenimage | July 16, 2008 1:22 PM

Nujood's father, Ali Mohammed Ahdal, said he is angry about what happened to his daughter. "He was a criminal, a criminal. He did hateful things to her," he said. "He didn't keep his promise to me that he wouldn't go near her until she was 20."
.................................

Until she was *twenty*--when she was married off at *eight*? Who believes this twaddle?

more from above:

"There is always a fear that the girl will do something to dishonor the family: She will run away with a guy, she will have relations with a boy. So this is always the phobia that the families have," said Suha Bashren of Oxfam International.
.................................

Yes, so many families believe that their little eight-year-old daughters will "dishonor" them--squealing loudly when out with their girlfriends, annoyingly begging to see "Kit Kittredge" for the third time, putting glittery Disney princess stickers all over dad's briefcase--does the humiliation second-graders bring on their families never end?

walterc | July 16, 2008 1:23 PM

So these people give their 10 yo daughter to a 30 yo pervert and expect him to what, baby sit for 10 years? All they have to ask themselves before deciding something like that is "what would mohammad do?" and that would tell them how it's going to turn out.

mike trivisonno | July 16, 2008 1:41 PM

This is institutionalized pedophilia. This happens because Islamic culture is sexually retarded inasmuch as it prevents the natural mingling of the sexes and the romantic competition that follows.

A very retrograde culture and one we should be rejecting.

Cornelius | July 16, 2008 2:23 PM

You wouldn't believe the extent to which Muslim moderates insist that the 6 or 7 Hadith from Bukari and Muslim documenting the rape of Aisha at the age of 9 is inauthentic or "weak". I've argued with several on Left-wing European blogs...and apparently, they've been so corrupted by Western sensibilities that they'll do all manner of intellectual gymnastics to deny the legitimacy of their own scripture.

In fact, a bona-fide apologia industry has been constructed for Muslim moderates who can then clear up the "misconceptions" of Islamic scripture through obfuscation and denial in order to ease the anxiety of concerned infidels.

Nokingofmine | July 16, 2008 3:03 PM

There was an old prophet called Mo (PBUH)
Whose libido had started to go
So he gave it a whirl with a nine year old girl
And she floated his bo-di-oh-doh.

spcbat | July 16, 2008 4:30 PM

eVIL ISLAM IS TRUE EVIL I AM NOT A BIBLE THUMPER BUT.

THERE IS EVIL IN THIS WORLD AND IT IS MOHAMMAS AND ALLAH WHO I THINK WAS THE DEVIL I BELIEVE THIS RELIGION AND THESE PEOPLE OF ISLAM ARE EVIL,

Ian | July 16, 2008 5:38 PM

"In Yemen, there is nothing new or extraordinary about Nujood's story because children have been married off for generations. The country's legal minimum age for marriage was 15 till a decade ago, when the law was changed to allow for children even younger to be wed. [...]"

That's Islam for you, it just keeps on progressing.
If you're alarmed by the fact that a country could make the age of consent younger, to include pre pubescent girls, you must be Islamophobic, and a racist.
Close your eyes, remember, these are not the droids your looking for, move on.

Kevin | July 16, 2008 5:45 PM

I was going to respond with a smart-ass remark. But the very idea of treating a child as a burden and piece of property whose only reason for existence is to produce minions for ol' Mo doesn't doesn't spark the smart-ass in me. These parents, as are all parents in Islam, are pathetic. That's right I said "ALL". Sue me. And that goes for any other cult who believes in child marriage. But, alas, what does one expect from a barbaric, insulting, discriminatory, misogynistic group of murderous, blood-thirsty, bastards? Must be nice to live life with such a low level of expectation in the world.

Engelbrekt | July 16, 2008 9:09 PM
Tiny Voices Defy Child Marriage in Yemen
“Hard-line Islamic conservatives, whose influence has grown enormously in the past two decades, defend it, pointing to the Prophet Muhammad’s marriage to a 9-year-old.
...
Her father, Ali Muhammad al-Ahdal, … A gaunt, broken-looking man, Mr. Ahdal once worked as a street sweeper. Now he and his family beg for a living. He has 16 children by two women.
…
In South Yemen, the government had passed a law in 1979 setting the age of marriage at 16 for women and 18 for men. An extensive public awareness campaign, including songs and television spots with titles like “The Victimized Daughter of the Tribe” and “Traditions and Rituals” helped educate people about the dangers posed by early marriage and pregnancy.
…
But in 1998 Parliament revised it, allowing girls to be married earlier … That change reflected the triumph of northern Yemen’s more conservative Islamic culture”

South and North Yemen where united in 1990. South Yemen was in principal the former British colony Aden and surrounding protectorates, the British did leave in 1967. A not to wild speculation might be that the unislamic high marriage age in the south was due to evil colonial secular influence from the British rule, duly rectified 1998 by Islamic scholars.