just following the prophet’s example

The New York Times has an article about two prepubescent girls in Yemen escaping marriages to 30+ year-old men.  All emphases mine.

Tiny Voices Defy Fate of Yemen’s Girls

One morning last month, Arwa Abdu Muhammad Ali walked out of her husband’s house here and ran to a local hospital, where she complained that he had been beating and sexually abusing her for eight months.

That alone would be surprising in Yemen, a deeply conservative Arab society where family disputes tend to be solved privately. What made it even more unusual was that Arwa was 9 years old.

Within days, Arwa — a tiny, delicate-featured girl — had become a celebrity in Yemen, where child marriage is common but has rarely been exposed in public. She was the second child bride to come forward in less than a month; in April, a 10-year-old named Nujood Ali had gone by herself to a courthouse to demand a divorce, generating a landmark legal case.

Together, the two girls’ stories have helped spur a movement to put an end to child marriage, which is increasingly seen as a crucial part of the cycle of poverty in Yemen and other third world countries. Pulled out of school and forced to have children before their bodies are ready, many rural Yemeni women end up illiterate and with serious health problems. Their babies are often stunted, too.

These kinds of forced “marriages” are despicable.  (I put marriage in quotes, because an 8 year-old is truly incapable of informed consent.)  This is child abuse and molestation.  Few girls are able to escape.  Even if they manage it, tribal courts often force them back to the homes of their molesters.

No doubt, these child “marriages” contribute to the cycle of poverty.  How could illiteracy and the damage to their young bodies and babies not contribute?  But note the point that only works its way into the article by way of caption.

Nujood’s father, Ali Muhammad al-Ahdal, who has 16 children, said that, with no husband, Nujood could have been abducted.

Yes.  16!! children.  The man was once a street sweeper, has two wives, sixteen children, and now the family begs for a living.  It’s called birth control, Yemen.  Invest in it.  It’s much cheaper.  But what does Islam say about birth control?

Now coming to the issue of birth control, there is nothing in Islam that prohibits it so long as it is done consensually for valid reasons such as the following: putting off pregnancy until such time when the spouses are in a better position to shoulder the responsibilities of parenting, to allow for space between pregnancies in order to provide proper nurturing and care to existing children, et cetera.

Birth control is, however, forbidden or undesirable when it is resorted to as a permanent measure to prevent conception altogether; likewise, it is forbidden if resorted to for fear of poverty. Allah says, “Don’t kill your children for fear of poverty; it is We who provide sustenance for them and you; verily killing them is a most heinous crime!” (Al-Isra’: 31). After reflecting on this verse, scholars have concluded that practicing birth control for fear of poverty is unlawful since it implies weakness of faith and trust in Allah as the Provider and Sustainer of all beings.”

Living Shari’ah Fatwa Bank

Don’t you just love that?  Birth control is a-okay, so long as you don’t use it for anything truly useful like avoiding having children that you cannot afford to support.

So, if you aren’t going to use birth control, why would you marry off a mere girl?  (Completely ignoring the repugnance of forcing oneself on an eight year-old at the moment.)

But despite a rising tide of outrage, the fight against the practice is not easy. 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. Child marriage is deeply rooted in local custom here, and even enshrined in an old tribal expression: “Give me a girl of 8, and I can give you a guarantee” for a good marriage.

“GIVE ME A GIRL OF 8, AND I CAN GIVE YOU A GUARANTEE.” Really makes you want to retch, doesn’t it?  Where is the Louisiana Supreme Court when you need it?  They’d be all for frying these pervs.

Again, ignoring the revulsion for the moment, WHY would someone take an 8 year-old for a bride?

Poverty is one reason so many Yemeni families marry their children off early. Another is the fear of girls being carried off and married by force. But most important are cultural tradition and the belief that a young virginal bride can best be shaped into a dutiful wife, according to comprehensive study of early marriage published by Sana University in 2006.

Virginity and obedience.  I suppose we’re supposed to believe that those aren’t really Islamic traditions. 

Read all of the article at The Times for the heartbreaking details and the stories of two very courageous young girls, one of whom already wants to be a journalist or human rights lawyer…. and plans on NEVER marrying again.  Let’s hope she makes it.  Yemen needs her.