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Caption to this AP photo (via Snapped Shot, with thanks to Pamela):
U.S. freelance photographer Stephanie Sinclair poses with her winning photo of the 'UNICEF Photo of the Year 2007' competition in Berlin, Germany, on Monday, Dec. 17, 2007. The photograph shot by U.S. freelance photographer Stephanie Sinclair shows a wedding couple in Afghanistan who could not be more opposite. The groom, Mohammed, looks much older than his 40 years. The bride, Ghulam, is still a child; she just turned 11. Stephanie Sinclair works as a freelance photographer based in Beirut, Lebanon. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
And from the UNICEF site (thanks to Anne Crockett):
The UNICEF Photo of the Year 2007 is one of a series of photos about child marriages taken by Stephanie Sinclair between 2005 and 2007 in Afghanistan, Nepal and Ethiopia. During a stay in Afghanistan, it consistently struck the 34-year old freelance photographer, how many young girls are married to much older men. She decided to raise awareness about this topic with her pictures. According to UNICEF estimates, about 50% of Afghan women are married before they turn 18. In Afghanistan, in most parts of South Asia and in Southern Africa, marriage is often seen as a business transaction that has nothing to do with personal desires. In this process, the bride is the article of trade - the younger she is, the higher the bride price. “What are you feeling today?” Stephanie Sinclair asked Ghulam on her engagement. “Nothing,” the bewildered girl answered. “I do not know this man. What am I supposed to feel?”
Gratitude, probably, at having the chance to emulate Aisha, the "Mother of the Believers":
The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death). (Bukhari 7.62.88)
Posted by Robert at December 19, 2007 8:28 AM
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It all comes with the worship of the so called prophet Mohammed, sanctioned pedophilia.
Posted by: Briars![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at December 19, 2007 8:58 AM
Sickening, to say the least.
In civilized parts of the world we put such men in jails. In islam, it's sunnah.
Posted by: Crusader at December 19, 2007 8:58 AM
Eleven year old girls should be learning how to convert fractions to decimals and not getting married.
Posted by: AnneCrockett at December 19, 2007 9:03 AM
The UN is publicizing a phenomenon that leads to Western revulsion with Islam.
Will there be a backlash by the Muslim states? Or will there be a great increase in child marriages in the West?
Posted by: StillBreathing at December 19, 2007 9:08 AM
A bit of jumping the gun. Please see the official site for the award.
http://www.unicef.de/foto/2007/english/index.htm
Disturbing images are meant to raise awareness. We should be supporting this instance of this award.
S.
Posted by: yardbird at December 19, 2007 9:09 AM
How gross. How revolting. And, of course the pedophile creep's name is Mohammed.
Poor little girl. Islamic culture is the sickest society of all. I daresay the stone-age tribes of Papua New Guinea are more advanced.
Posted by: darcy at December 19, 2007 9:10 AM
Greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ: hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.
“What are you feeling today?” Stephanie Sinclair asked Ghulam on her engagement. “Nothing,” the bewildered girl answered. “I do not know this man. What am I supposed to feel?”
Yes, the cult of Mohammed kills all natural human feeling. It kills dreams, hope, decency, empathy, humility...clearly this god that the man Mohammed concocted is a dangerous and cruel being.
Posted by: Stand fast in the liberty at December 19, 2007 9:48 AM
StillBreathing asks:
"Will there be a backlash by the Muslim states? Or will there be a great increase in child marriages in the West?"
With the victorious,'immigration' [Invasion?]inroads being made all over Europe [and elsewhere], I would have to say the later.
at December 19, 2007 9:49 AM
yardbird
Robert is not an idiot nor the rest of us.
It's not WHAT you say, it's HOW you say it.
The UN is doing what they always do, blaming the problem on poverty.
Which, while it may be part of the problem, the RELIGON gives them permission on both sides to allow this.
In a Christian country the man would simply donate money to the parents or give them a job.
at December 19, 2007 9:52 AM
Yardbird and Aunt Bea:
I am somewhat puzzled as to why your discussion is even going on. There is no disapproval of UNICEF in my post above. I am happy that they are calling attention to the phenomenon of child marriage.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
at December 19, 2007 9:56 AM
It's enough to make you sick, is it enough to make us stop this institutionalized pedophila?
When there is a conflict between basic human rights and primitive superstition, which should prevail?
I know what the "groom" would say. "But this is what I believe and I have a right to believe."
I, too, have beliefs. I believe that after the marriage (rape) is consumated and the bloody sheets displayed to all the relatives, that you should be arrested and stand trail for the rape of a minor.
That is what I believe.
Posted by: tanstaafl at December 19, 2007 10:25 AM
Robert,
I apologize for speaking in your name. You are very clear in what you say.
I went to the website and read what was said there.
What follows is copied from the text accompanying the photo.
Child marriages are a reaction to extreme poverty and mainly take place in Asian and African regions where poor families see their daughters as a burden and as second-class citizens
Once again, sorry
Aunt Bea
at December 19, 2007 11:03 AM
The problem with the UN is that, while raising the issue of forced marraige through the photo's publication, will go no further, make no normative judgment; the UN will not say "this is abhorrent!" The UN will be self-satisfied by offering up what it has observed, but will not dare to offend another's culture. Islam views women as property and objects and the UN will not judge that practice. It simply recognizes it, in what some may term as a moderate relativism. So in many ways the UN indulges this barbarism.
Posted by: ironbill at December 19, 2007 11:18 AM
The looks on the faces of that couple says it all.
Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS at December 19, 2007 11:37 AM
He, the "Ghulam" were the slave bodyguards of the Ottoman sultan. How fitting for this girl, given her destiny, to have been called "slave" by her own parents - may they rot in hell.
Posted by: cruzado at December 19, 2007 1:42 PM
Larger view of winning photo:
http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1048831,00.jpg
Posted by: kamala at December 19, 2007 2:32 PM
Larger view of winning photo:
http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1048831,00.jpg
He looks a 'young' 40 to me, and the poor lass an 'old' 11 or 12, so why all the fuss? Within a few years after popping out a few kiddies, she'll look as old as him anyway. Then he'll take a new 'wife' and repeat the process. Let's be culturally 'tolerant' here, please.
Posted by: Battle_of_Tours
at December 19, 2007 2:48 PM
Seems like that's the only way to insure a pure muslim bride these days.
Posted by: Stinkyinfidel at December 19, 2007 3:03 PM
Oh, come on, I was married when I was eleven...
(to Donny Osmond, in my dreams...)
Posted by: Josephine at December 19, 2007 3:42 PM
Once again I am waiting for the loud and raucus response from the West, especially feminists and those who claim to know about gender discrimination.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................hmmmmmm...............................................................................................nothing so far, give em another minute........................................................................................................................................................wake me when they respond, if you would.
"Kuffirs of the world, Unite!"
"Islam, abusing women and children since 622AD"
at December 19, 2007 3:42 PM
America making Afghanistan safe for Man-Boy Love and Child Marriages. Isn't the promulgation of Democracy in Dar al-Islam grand?
Posted by: Mister Ghost at December 19, 2007 3:50 PM
That's Islam for you. Sacralized licentious filth, murder, and mayhem.
And Muslims have the gall to label "kuffir" unclean? They have the arrogance to accuse people who believe in humanity, kindness, and civility as opposed to Islam of being indecent, and "non-believers" and "infidels"? It's all too much.
Posted by: jsla at December 19, 2007 3:52 PM
Someone needs to send Stephanie Sinclair the relevant Hadith and Sira accounts of Mohammed's marriage to Aisha, and Quranic passages that take for granted the marriage of pre-pubescent, non-menstruating girls, and the assumption that they will have been subjected to intercourse.
And the account of when, and how, and why, the Ayatollah Khomeini reduced the marriageable age of girls from 18 to 9; and his discussions of the practice of 'thighing', and the 'divine blessing' of marrying very, very young girls.
Ms Sinclair should be congratulated for at least noticing and making visible the widespread practice of child marriage; but she should also be given the specific reasons why it is particularly prevalent in Muslim societies - and those reasons have, in the end, little or nothing to do with poverty, but a very great deal to do with the example set by Mohammed when he married poor little Aisha.
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at December 19, 2007 3:53 PM
Aunt Bea quoted the UNICEF website:
Child marriages are a reaction to extreme poverty and mainly take place in Asian and African regions where poor families see their daughters as a burden and as second-class citizens
"Asian and African regions". No mention that those Asian and African regions are Islam-dominated. No mention of Arab regions. And as Aunt Bea pointed out, they do mention poverty, even though there are many poverty stricken areas of the world where the people do not respond by having sex with underage children. Maybe it's just my lack of cultural sensitivity, but I don't see how poverty causes pedophilia.
As for a UN agency saying something critical of an Islamic practice (child-brides in this case), even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Posted by: special_guest at December 19, 2007 3:56 PM
Once again I am waiting for the loud and raucus response from the West, especially feminists and those who claim to know about gender discrimination...
You may have to wait a long while for the Sisters of the West to speak up. In Iraq, the loudest criticism at the lost of women's rights in the Post-Invasion
period has come from the few remaining Iraqi feminists like Yanar Mohammad of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq.
at December 19, 2007 3:57 PM
I hope Ms. Sinclair considers a line of Christmas or Happy Eid cards using these images worth a thousand words. Nothing says, "Islam is Peace," like a picture of an old lecher victimizing youth because his religion sanctions his right to do so.
I will happily buy several boxes and send them out next year at Christmas time to my congressional reps, senators, local clergy, city officials, liberal librarians, the local mosques, university presidents, political action committees, school board members, Homeland Security, the President, Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense to remind them of who benefits from Mo's rules and who loses their rights in Islam.
Posted by: BurkasforHitlery at December 19, 2007 7:41 PM
Thumbs up to the photographer, who managed to survive taking that picture of the happy couple.
Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS at December 19, 2007 9:00 PM
Just a word of caution to the little muslim boys out there who will one day be old enough to date. My wife has stated that under no circumstances are you to come near our daughters, less you wish to become a transsexual, without the implants or hormone therapy. She quite naturally is most emphatically against the institutional pedophilia practiced by islam. Just a fair warning.
Posted by: Kevin at December 20, 2007 2:34 AM
Ah, but you see, it's racist to criticise this sort of thing. They have different customs, so it is ethnocentric on our part to condemn, even perhaps to notice, unless of course, in the cant term of the age, we're going to "celebrate" such diversity. Odd, this: male chauvinism and Nazism see to be alright if they're practised by Muslims.... But where's the principle involved? That they're all "differently-skinned" and can't be expected to know any better? So multiculturalism ends up being patronising.
Posted by: Ferrington at December 20, 2007 9:06 AM
One fatwa coming right up.
Posted by: DaveMate at December 20, 2007 4:41 PM
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