Do you think that we'll ever see an end to child brides?

So tragic. I am hoping that the women around the world will get angry enough to protest and stop it. But we can’t stop gun violence in this country so I don’t know.

Not as long as men continue to lust after young flesh.

See, this is where common sense and morality conflict with legalities. If you know you’ll probably kill this girl, why would you do it unless you’re a sick twisted individual? It’s still murder.

@marinelife Absolutely, and that will never stop. Let’s just hope we keep it illegal in the US.

I couldn’t even read that whole article it makes me so ill. The law won’t end the rape of young girls, which is exactly what that was. I mean how sick and twisted to you need to be for a man to want to put an adult penis inside an 8 year old girl. It is one of the most twisted thing I can think of. I saw a show once about a place in Africa where they tated young girls who had been raped and their internal organs were split in two, many of them bled to death. Of course I want the laws changed, but also there needs to be education. Some parts of Africa men believe sex with a virgin girl will cure their AIDS. The governments don’t educate the population, because of cultural taboos. Fuck that! Then there are the cases of rape to weaken the women and men on an opposing side of war torn areas. Now take this case of marrying a child. That can only happen in a place where women have no real power. Empowering women changes the world. The article did state most of Yemen is appalled, so at least that is something positive. Goodness knows horrific things happen to young girls in America also. We are one of the biggest buyers of human trafficking of girls.

To all that think that empowering women will change this, please realize that in these cultures women are primarily responsible for cultural transfer. From generation to generation.

We teach at university in the middle east and 18 year old girls are extremely fanatic in ‘upholding the rules’.

This sick practise should stop but don’t turn this into too simple a picture.

Men and women should be empowered and educated.

Well if you ban it, it will just go underground and people will do it anyways, so might as well keep it legal. Oh, this isn’t the gun control thread…

…never mind.

It will end when the girl’s father takes the new son-in-law aside, looks him straight in the eyes and says very clearly. “If you hurt my daughter in any way my mission in life will be to hunt you down like a dog and force feed you your….”

Will we ever see an end to female genital mutilation?

My mother lives in an assisted nursing facility. Most of the LPNs and CNAs are from Sierra Leone. I’ve read that Sierra Leone is one of the world’s leading countries for the practice of FGM. Every time I meet or chat with one of these lovely young women, the thought’s always in the back of my mind – did she suffer like that as a child, and does she permanently live with scars and disfigurement?

@LuckyGuy My guess is the father approved of the marriage.

Child brides are a part of Muslim, and many other cultures. It’s not going away. In fact, if anything, it’ll probably be stepped up a notch here with all the pro-Islam propaganda floating around.

@DWW25921 Where is here?

The United States

@DWW25921 Then I completely disagree with your answer. Child brides are against the law in America. Sure, we have incidents of it in our country (not 8 years old, but as young as 14 have been reported) but I don’t see some big increase on the horizon. Our mainstream culture is completely against it aside from our laws.

@JLeslie Is shariah law not coming to America? You are assuming that logic dictates reality. Consider that we are currently embracing Islam as a nation. There are consequences to embracing a culture that we really don’t understand. Child brides are common under Islamic law. So is slavery; Incidentally the 30 (plus) million Christian Africans enslaved in Islamic countries right now would agree with me. I agree it is wrong, but “political correctness” has taken us to the point where we blindly accept everything regardless of the consequences.

Child brides are not part of Muslim culture, they are part of the tribal middle eastern cultures, as well as in other places, like India.

There are rules in Shariah allowing young women to be married, these rules were however implemented in a time where the arabic culture had no rules limiting child marriage at all.

What some now use as a license to marry a child, was actually meant to protect even younger children.

Even though shariah allows it, in shariah there is nothing that states that women should be married at an extremely young age. Amongst muslims living in the west, this is not happening and among the rest of muslims, in for instance the middle east, it is more and more frowned upon.

It is just a very nasty remnent of the past that is hopefully soon gone.

@DWW25921 I hold out hope that America will not allow Christian law nor Sharia, that we will stay a primarily secular government. Law trumps religion. Every Muslim person I know who is from the middle east came to America to either escape theocracy and/or seek opportunity and freedom. Sure there are a few whackos out there practicing their macho opressive ridiculousness in their families in America, but that happens with other cultures and religions in America too. But, that is not what America is.

@whitenoise I hope you’re right! Thanks for the explanation!

@JLeslie Whether you want to believe it or not, the United States was founded on Christian principles and laws. You’re right though, that’s not what America is now. Look at the mess we’re in! Wars over nothing, cities in ruin, corruption and entitlements abound. Did you know that entitlements make up most of the budget? Anyway, you’re right though, child brides are a horrible practice and need to be abolished.

Yes, we will, because cultures are capable of change. 150 years ago many women asked the question: Will we ever see an end to denying women voting rights? Or will we ever see an end to denying black people voting rights?

Some cultural changes take time.

@DWW25921
With respect to your remark over Islam and slavery, I just can’t help myself:

Slavery and Christianity
Slavery in different forms existed within Christianity for over 18 centuries. Although in the early years of Christianity, freeing slaves was regarded as an act of charity, and the Christian view of equality of all people including slaves was a novelty in the Roman Empire, the actual institution of slavery was rarely criticised.
In 340, the Synod of Gangra condemned urging slaves to liberate themselves; their canons instead declared that preaching abolitionism should be condemned, and that slaves had a Christian obligation to submit to their masters. Augustine of Hippo argued that slavery was part of the mechanism to preserve the natural order of things

Slavery and Islam
One of the five pillars of Islam zakat is meant to encourage Muslims to donate money to free slaves and bonded labourers in countries where slaves and bonded labourers may have existed. In the hope that over time there will be no slaves left in that country. The amount of zakat to be paid on capital assets (e.g. money) is 2.5% (¼0) per year [98] for people who are not poor.

Now based on this (thank you, wikipedia!!!!) I conclude that as a religion Islam is far more concerned with the fates of the slaves and actively condemning slavery than Christianity.

Yet… Most Christians nowadays condemn slavery and push for equal rights amongst men and women. I’d like to believe, though, that this is a consequence of increased humanistic influence rather than a consequence of Christianity developing on its own.

Again this adds to my point that this is not a matter of barbaric religious (Islamic) influences, but those of a culture that is lagging ours.

The reason I write this, is that you need to focus your criticism in the right direction. If you expect the worst of people, that is what you’ll get. We need to expect the best of them and educate them and show them the way to still embrace their religion, while changing their cultures for the betterment of all.

@DWW25921 Wars over nothing? Proclaimed Christians are bringing us into those wars. President Bush was a fairly devout Christian. Maybe you agree with us going into Iraq? Doesn’t matter, the point is our Christian President went in on false pretense. Although, I in no way feel Christians are war mongers in this time in history as a group. I think the majority of the people on earth don’t want war. If you can’t see that strict Christian fanatacism is not a problem, just like when any religious group is fanatical, then I don’t know what to say. Again, I believe this is not the majority of Christians. Our laws can be discussed in terms of morality and ethics, but basing our government on some strict interpretation of one religion is simply anti-American. Our country was founded on religious freedom.

What @whitenoise posted is very important. He is a blond westerner (western Europe) in the middle of the middle east. He knows of what he speaks. He is not some liberal American just being contradictory. The culture is what matters most, not the specific religion.

@JLeslie
A blond westerner? How relevant is my hair color? Could you not have said something like… he’s a handsome westerner? Anyways… grey is the word, nowadays. :-)

@whitenoise Well, I just meant you stand out in the middle east. Handsome too, I’ll go with that.

yeah… I do stand out… like a sore thumb. :-/

@whitenoise What about now? How many slaves are under Islamic control? Interesting how you didn’t mention that. There was once a time when it was acceptable for every culture to have slaves. You need to ask yourself who has gotten past that and who hasn’t? It’s also interesting how folks tend to bash Christians regularly and defend Islam.

Do you really think they’ll be willing to change their culture for the betterment of humanity? People are inherently stubborn. The fact that we keep bombing them only makes their resolve stronger. We really need to get out of there. I digress…

Ok, if you are a woman who shows your face in public you deserve to get acid thrown at you, under Islamic law. If you are raped you deserve to be stoned to death, under Islamic law. Look, these are facts. I know that you know this. Seriously, a Christian who is raped is still considered a virgin because it wasn’t considered having sex as God intended. Also, “child brides” has a long tradition in Islamic culture that is not going to end for the sake of political correctness.

Lest you forget, how many Christians blow themselves up near a bus load of children because they’re offended? How many Hindus regularly kill little girls for being the wrong gender? How many Wiccans murder there political opponents and anyone who disagrees with them? Aren’t the Jews known for killing their own people over a religious difference? Nope, it’s just Islam. You’re defending the wrong side there bub. They want to kill you!

@JLeslie One of the reasons that I’m an Independent is the Republicans and Democrats are equally useless. That being said, Bush is an Idiot. I will also point out that one of Obama’s campaign promises was to end our current wars. It seems we’re about to enter another one. Bush is about as devout as my cat and Obama isn’t Christian at all. They both lie for political reasons. Anyway, all you’ll get from me for bashing Bush is agreement but I submit to you the idea that Obama is just as bad if not worse.

I agree with you that @whitenoise seems to be a very intelligent person with a lot of insight. If I didn’t feel that way I wouldn’t have bothered to respond. I just think that people aren’t looking at the big picture of what’s going on here. Logic and equality do not dictate reality. Maybe one day we as humans will reach that point.

@DWW25921 I will address some of your message here.

re What about now? How many slaves are under Islamic control?

Slavery, I assume you actually know, has little to do with religion. We see it everywhere. From the crack whores in the US to child labor in India. One doesn’t need to be Islamic at all to be involved. Just look here for statistics on slavery.

Estimated global annual profits made from the exploitation of all trafficked forced labour are US$ 31.6 billion
Of this:
US$ 15.5 billion – 49% – is generated in industrialized economies
US$ 9.7 billion – 30.6% is generated in Asia and the Pacific
US$ 1.3 billion – 4.1% is generated in Latin America and the Caribbean
US$ 1.6 billion – 5% is generated in sub-Saharan Africa
US$ 1.5 billion – 4.7% is generated in the Middle East and North Africa

As you see half of this is generated in industrialized economies. I am not sure, but most likely this isn’t the Islamic world.

To proceed…

re Ok, if you are a woman who shows your face in public you deserve to get acid thrown at you, under Islamic law.

Really? Come on… now, you are just being ridiculous. How am I to take you seriously when you state nonsense like that?

Raping Christians is OK? Who are you kidding?

Now… please don’t create this false notion of Islamic culture in which all these atrocities take place… You are making up your own facts… That is something you cannot do.

Talking about blowing up busses? Do you know who make up the majority of victims of what you refer to as Islamic violence? RIght… I knew you knew… other muslims.

Muslims blowing up Muslims is not ‘Muslim culture’. It is an exponent of years of abuse and oppression from dictatorial regimes and other fascist wannabees that hijack the prevalent religion in their region to serve their own purpose. You surely didn’t perceive the IRA as representing Christianity when they did their bombings?

All in all, your willingness to look at people to be other than us is scary. In-group versus outgrow attitudes are the foundation of most modern world misery.

Finally…

re You’re defending the wrong side there bub. They want to kill you!

That may be true for some here, however statistics seem to indicate that in recent history the west aw well as muslims are primarily focussed on killing muslims. Unfortunately, I fear that down the line, you may become right. That one day people here may indeed be out to kill me. I am tempted to blame people like you for that though, for spitting out that us-versus-them venom, seemingly unhindered by morality or any relevant knowledge.

Oh… and don’t try to explain my life to me again please… We are acutely aware of the risks and attitudes around us. I have little kids living here and we all go through the daily checkpoints with people looking in and under our cars for bombs, the barbed wire, etc… We know how to live in a region rife with terrorism. When the US is threatening to bomb Syria this actually influences our daily lives and security. We actually feel that.

@DWW25921 I certainly am not going to defend Obama with what has happened with the whole Syria thing. I equally criticize the dems and the republicans also, although I do identify as a democrat. Obama says he is a Christian, and I accept that, although I do assume he is not a very religious man. Bush did see himself as a religious man, a man who had been “saved.” I am not going to get into deciding for myself you is really Christian or not, because in every religion we can do that, and if we do it for Christians, we have to for Muslims too.

I am a not religious Jew, just like very many other Jews, and I would say most people still consider us Jewish, except for maybe the ultraorthodox. Even if the majority of Muslims are homocidal fanatics, which I do not think is true, it still does not say anything about the Muslims who aren’t. My Muslim friends in America, most of them from Iran, a few acquaintances from Pakistan, Indonesia, Jordan, are as American as me. They are moderate in their religious practices, doing some holidays and identifying themselves as Muslims. The women are not oppressed, they are educated, their families are beautiful inside and out. We cannot overgeneralize all Muslims, it isn’t fair.

We also cannot ask moderate Muslims to leave their religion just because there are some violent crazies. The same as we cannot as Mormons to leave their religion because some sects live on compounds, don’t allow children tp be educated, and marry off girls as you teens. Christians also have many different sects, some are oppressive. In fact, there are all too many Christians of late putting down getting an education, dismissing science, it’s awful. Not the majority of Christians, but there is enough numbers, and loud enough vouces that I am shocked it is happening in America.

Do you even know any Muslims? Any moderate ones? In America I would be surprised if there is more than 2% of our population that is Muslim and “mosque going.” Among those are some American black (African-American) Muslims. Among those only a percentage are extremely religious. It isn’t like the radical Muslims are taking over nor do they have any significant political power in America.

@JLeslie Remember that David Koresh used religious freedom to rape little girls in his ‘compound’. And I’m afriad there are many more groups like that that we aren’t aware of.

And as we now know, you can just lock someone up in your basement if the rest is too much effort.

@KNOWITALL Religious freedom does not trump our laws. David Koresh was a criminal.

@JLeslie Agreed.

Also, in reference to your post to @DWW25921 above, I’ll chime in that Christians are not all war-mongerers. There’s a correlation of sorts between my love of this country and my support of military action however, perhaps a more defensive stance, but it’s even those are often seen by leftiees as ‘aggression’. Convoluted.

@KNOWITALL I am all for a strong military from a defensive perspective.

@whitenoise Your statistics were fascinating! I appreciate the fact that you’ve brought some hard core facts to the table. I actually agree with much of what you said, believe it or not. I’m not going to argue semantics about slavery being that it’s all horrible. I know that you draw from personal experience and as far as that goes I only have 1 personal experience story. @JLeslie

My brother had a friend growing up who was Muslim and he explained to us one day that instead of going to the Mosque in Daytona, they go to the one in Orlando because “they’re just a bunch of terrorists” in Daytona. He also explained the reason his family came here was because his little sister was assaulted near their home in Jordan and in order to save her life they had to flea to the US. He never talked about what “assaulted” meant and I didn’t ask.

I also agree that not all Muslims are like that as these are the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life. Although I’ve lost touch with them I believe my brother still keeps in touch. Anyway, I do not mean to generalize but when a regular Mosque attending Muslim drives an extra 40 miles to attend a different congregation that speaks volumes. I realize that he was traumatized about whatever happened and maybe I should take that in to account but at the same time he’s been there. I’m glad I haven’t.

Well, @DWW25921, it is just that we don’t need more generalization and polarization.

We have only one world that seems increasingly smaller every day. We cannot afford much of us-versus-them. Even if it was merely because there are too many of ‘them’.

We need to recognize what human values help us and what don’t, then we need to try to have everyone buy in on that. Antagonizing doesn’t help in that process. I said an ideal world, not the ideal world!

In an ideal world we would all be humanistic secularists, smiling warily at our memories of a world once divided across religious lines.

@whitenoise – You conclude that as a religion Islam is far more concerned with the fates of the slaves and actively condemning slavery than Christianity? Well, you forgot to mention one thing: Islam considers it to be wrong that a Muslim owns a slave who is a Muslim. But before Islamic law non-Muslims do not have equal rights.

@mattbrowne
True… to some extent. There is a lot wrong with Islamic law, from my perspective. For that it makes me feel even more akward, defending it. The things I wrote need to be seen in the context of responding to @DWW25921‘s posting. I have never met any muslim that would limit its definition of a slave to muslims. I have heard a lot of other unwanted thoughts about non-muslims, but not in that context.

Let’s also not forget that Christians have also found an excuse in scripture, for in-group versus out-group ideologies, every time they looked for one. Just look at the recent activities of this crazy American priest regarding LGBT’s worldwide. (link to NBC NEWS)

Like Shariah, Christian law, if taken unmoderated from the bible directly, is nonsensical in many ways (as well). Nevertheless,setting up a law system that keeps in mind and respects what we perceive as Christian values seems to work.

The same is true for those states that try to become modern Islamic states. Implementing Sharia 1 on 1 doesn’t work too well, so they work around and (hopefully) end up with similar laws Christians end up with.

GATT needs to be implemented, in order to even function nowadays.

Interest is not allowed, yet Islamic banks lend money and find ways to charge for it.

The position of women is being improved, even in Saudi Arabia.
Women participate in national councils and are starting to get voting rights.
More women are graduating in Saudia Arabia then men. A lot of them are studying abroad.

Criminals are being prosecuted, regardless of religion. Death penalties can no longer be so easily applied in every court. Jurisprudence is taking a hold.

Freedom of information is improving…

But yes… a lot is wrong. We should however keep our eye on the true enemy and we will often find that this is the same enemy the average muslims faces. The average muslim probably even has to fear more of it than we.

@whitenoise – Many non-Muslims low-wage workers in Saudi Arabia are treated almost like slaves. In the West we have modern forms of slavery too, e.g. human trafficking and forced prostitution. The difference is, we in the West engage in an open debate about our shortcomings. We criticize our leaders and our religions. The Muslim world needs a culture of debate and disagreement too in order to build a better future. The ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is the exact opposite. They don’t want a culture of debate. The want everyone to obey the rules of Islam. They want everyone to imitate the life of the Prophet based on Arab culture present in the 7th century. Yes, the average Muslim has to fear this more than we. Therefore millions of Egyptians took to the streets to demonstrate against Morsi.

Will we ever see the end of abortions, unwed teenage mothers, and unmarried people cohabitating? Why bother them over there, that is their culture, and they will dictate what is best for them as the rest of us in our perspective nations will do what is best for us. If where you are, you do not want anyone telling you how you should live your life, then stop feeling you can to others.

@Hypocrisy_Central Sorry but cultural moral relativism is crap. If you accept that then you would have to likewise accept “Nazi culture” as being ok because it their culture or the killing fields in Cambodia as their culture. All humans have certain fundamental human rights. As a member of humankind it is my duty to support those rights for all people. That’s not to say one culture is better than another. There are many aspects of culture that should be respected across cultures, but fundamental human rights isn’t one of them.

@Hypocrisy_Central

One cannot equate child brides to abortion, unwed teenage mothers and the like. Of course all are consequences of religious interference with creating a responsible society, but child brides are consciously inflicted harm and the other ones unintended consequential. One may even say that abortion is a lesser harm as a correction to and prevention of a greater harm. The greater harm most often being the consequence of religion banning proper sexual education.

Besides…. what is wrong with unmarried cohabitation other than condemnation based in (often religious) dogma?