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1 reine.de.tout  Wed, Jun 8, 2011 8:22:14pm

I'm just speechless.

2 calochortus  Wed, Jun 8, 2011 8:26:59pm

I read the Nat. Geo. article. It is sad, and it makes me angry. I am happy that there are people working to provide alternatives.

3 What, me worry?  Thu, Jun 9, 2011 6:47:54am

re: #1 reine.de.tout

I'm just speechless.

It's horrifying and really highlights the lack of women's rights and female children in much of the world.

The second article I linked by Mandy Major indicates that if these trends continue, 100 million girls will be married off over the next decade, typically to men twice their age. "These girls are faced with a two-prong tragedy: the end of their education and sexual activity beyond their physical or emotional capacity." They are more apt to be abused and suffer terrible health issues surrounding childbearing because of poor or inadequate healthcare.

The International Center for Research on Women is a leading organization trying to stop the problem. They've been working with the U.S. Congress to reintroduce legislation that calls attention to child marriage and tries to educate parents to keep their girls in school.

On Feb. 22, 2011, Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Scott Brown (R-Mass.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) reintroduced the “International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act.”

The legislation contains the same provisions that unanimously passed the Senate in 2010. The legislation would authorize U.S. foreign assistance funding to prevent child marriage and provide educational and economic opportunities to girls in the developing world. The policy would help protect girls’ human rights by:

* Establishing a multi-year strategy to prevent child marriage in developing countries and promote the empowerment of girls at risk of child marriage

* Requiring the State Department to report on this harmful practice in its annual human rights report

* Integrating child marriage prevention efforts into existing development programs

ICRW has advocated for the passage of the child marriage prevention bill since 2006, and continues to work with Congress and the administration to find evidence-based solutions to this gross human rights violation.

India is working with an incentive program which gives savings bonds to young girls to be cashed in at age 18 only if they don't marry.

I would also note that this is a common practice among Hindu as much as it is among Muslims. Religion, in fact, is not an issue. It's cultural.

Follow the ICRW on Twitter: [Link: twitter.com...]

4 What, me worry?  Thu, Jun 9, 2011 7:01:25am

Some of these women try to kill themselves through self-immolation, that is, lighting themselves on fire. They think they will die instantly, but often don't, only to linger with painful injuries.

[Link: ngm.nationalgeographic.com...]

Did this woman, Zahara, burn herself?

The placement of her wounds suggests that she set herself on fire, but at the time of my visit she denied it. Denial is common at the hospital because patients are often afraid they will receive lesser care for self-inflicted wounds. The act of self-immolation brings shame upon the family, which is another reason women deny what is in many cases a failed suicide attempt.

How are child marriage and self-immolation connected?

More than half the women I met in the burn ward were married very young: 9, 10, or 11. It was clear they were miserable. Many of them had suffered long periods of mental trauma during their early marriages. Then they heard other women had set themselves on fire, and they saw it as a way out, or even what I see as a cry for help. Because they haven’t been educated, they don’t realize the consequences of living through the burns, of living with disfigurement. Girls are often pulled out of school as soon as they’re engaged. Keeping them in school works against both child marriage and self-immolation.

5 The Questionable Timing of a Flea  Thu, Jun 9, 2011 11:14:34am
I would also note that this is a common practice among Hindu as much as it is among Muslims. Religion, in fact, is not an issue. It's cultural.

Sort of.

Culture sets a skeletal model of why the marriage is happening...conflict resolution...and archaic models of gender roles reinforce the "need" for a daughter to marry young and be protected by a husband and, indeed, shaming of parents who don't push their daughters into marriage is a component of this. It's all literally Medieval in outlook....

But power and money mean that there's a strong component of extortion and trafficking. There are men who want this...pursue this...because of their sexual proclivities, and if they have a bit of authority they can make it happen. There's an immense fetishization of female virginity in the Middle East and India (actually, in Africa and South America too)--both in the sexual and Marxist sense--that provides cover for what is functionally pedophili/ephibophilia. One of the simple indicators of the exploitative nature of child marriage is that it so often occurs between men of far higher status than their brides--this is most visible in India's caste system, but also true if one looks at the less-formal hierarchies that define rural life in Islamic nations--who have ceded the strategic aspect of traditional arranged marriage to obtain a child bride.

So there's both an archaic, unhealthy cultural component and sick bastards that are exploiting it...using money, using tradition, using guilt, using power...because they're sexual predators.

6 What, me worry?  Thu, Jun 9, 2011 11:51:41am

re: #5 The Ghost of a Flea

Sort of.

Culture sets a skeletal model of why the marriage is happening...conflict resolution...and archaic models of gender roles reinforce the "need" for a daughter to marry young and be protected by a husband and, indeed, shaming of parents who don't push their daughters into marriage is a component of this. It's all literally Medieval in outlook...

But power and money mean that there's a strong component of extortion and trafficking. There are men who want this...pursue this...because of their sexual proclivities, and if they have a bit of authority they can make it happen. There's an immense fetishization of female virginity in the Middle East and India (actually, in Africa and South America too)--both in the sexual and Marxist sense--that provides cover for what is functionally pedophili/ephibophilia. One of the simple indicators of the exploitative nature of child marriage is that it so often occurs between men of far higher status than their brides--this is most visible in India's caste system, but also true if one looks at the less-formal hierarchies that define rural life in Islamic nations--who have ceded the strategic aspect of traditional arranged marriage to obtain a child bride.

So there's both an archaic, unhealthy cultural component and sick bastards that are exploiting it...using money, using tradition, using guilt, using power...because they're sexual predators.

There is a sexual predator aspect. Of course, there is something horribly wrong with an adult man advocating sex with a small child, period.

But from reading these articles, it is entrenched in countries because of a cultural or traditional experience. Not religious, not confined to one country and yes, not confined to a certain caste, although it seems to be most prominent in poor, rural areas.

I have no reason to believe otherwise. These people have been working to stop child marriages and bring awareness to the free world for a long time.

[Link: www.icrw.org...]

7 The Questionable Timing of a Flea  Thu, Jun 9, 2011 2:03:47pm

I agree that the basic cultural component of child marriage is deeply rooted and has to be addressed.


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