 "There is no law that prohibits the marriage of a girl under 18," says the randy old goat, and he's right. After all, Muhammad did it: "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 It seems likely that this is the same case as the one we reported about here, although it could conceivably be a similar but different case of child marriage. "Saudi activists outraged as man marries 11 yr old," from Al-Arabiya, January 17 DUBAI (Al Arabiya) News of a Saudi octogenarian marrying an eleven-year-old girl has outraged human rights activists amid calls on the government to regulate the marriage of underage girls, local media reported Saturday. The Saudi National Human Rights Commission formed a committee to investigate the marriage, which activists consider a flagrant violation of human and children rights, the Saudi newspaper al-Riyadh said. The marriage registrar, who was widely criticized since he agreed to seal the marriage contract knowing the girl's age, absolved himself of any blame. "There is no law that prohibits the marriage of a girl under 18," he told the paper. "Plus, I summoned the girl and she declared her consent and signed the contract."... The father, who took 85,000 riyals (more than $22,000) in dowry, defended his decision to marry off his 11-year-old daughter even though his wife vehemently objected. "I don't care about her age," he told the paper. "Her health and her body build make her fit for marriage. I also don't care what her mother thinks." Of course not. Why should he? The father added that marriage at such an early age has been a custom in the Saudi society for a very long time and that he saw no reason why it should be a problem now. "This is a very old custom and there is nothing wrong with it whether religiously or socially."... As for the bride, she just called for help as she burst into tears. "Save me. I don't want him," she cried. With thanks to JihadWatch 
 Nothing has changed, except for the new generation of victims. Note also the state's adherence in practice to Sharia guidelines rather than civil law, and al Azhar University's affirmation of Aisha's age at marriage as a precedent -- something apologists adamantly deny to Western audiences. "Forced Islamization of Christian Girls Supported By Egyptian State," by Mary Abdelmassih for the Assyrian International News Agency Cairo (AINA) -- The phenomenon of abduction, rape and forced Islamization of Christian girls in Egypt was shown for the first time on the Christian TV channel "Life TV", which broadcasts from outside Egypt and has nearly 60 million Arab-speaking viewers in Egypt and around the world. The testimonies of the victims and their families came as a shock to many, including Egyptian Christians, since this issue is taboo for the Egyptian media, "Our role is to expose those behind those crimes," said Rasheed El Maghreby, the program's moderator. The program was aired in mid-November 2009, and interviewed Mr. Magdi Khalil, an authority on Coptic affairs who has made a complete field study on forced Islamization of Christian minors in Egypt.
Mr Khalil explained that this phenomenon in its present form is nearly 40 years old, and most of these conversion crimes, with a few isolated exceptions, are carried out by organized Islamization gangs or "Islamization Mafia", a termed coined by him, which are fully funded by the state and supported by State Security. "Those highly organized gangs carry out systematic planning," says Khalil. "Besides violent forced abductions, other devious means include allurement, deception, psychological pressure, financial temptation, emotional relationships ending in rape and photographs taken to blackmail the victims into conversion, and spreading fear in the hearts of their families.
They turn the minor into a broken, humble, and submissive person who drifts along a road which would have been impossible for her to take under normal circumstances or in an atmosphere of family or legal protection, and of her own free will." The TV program aired three cases of victims throwing light on the complete disadvantage of the affected families in front of the "Islamization mafia", in view of the complete lack of support, if not collusion, of the authorities. [...] Another incident was described by a villager who said that his daughter, who was less than 16-years-old, was abducted as she went to the nearby grocery store. When he reported the matter to the police, he was told he was causing 'sectarian strife.' He said: "I asked to see my daughter just for 10 minutes, but they refused. I was detained at the police station until the officer received a phone call that my daughter was taken away." He said that the police forced him to leave the village. "My daughter returned to the village 3 days after I left. They have taken my home by force and now my daughter lives in it with her Muslim husband.... Video of victims' testimony can be found at AINA's site, linked above. "This is thuggery. As long as it is for the benefit of Islam, all authorities join together as if it is an 'armed invasion.' Sharia over the law and Islam over the nation," said Khalil. The latest fraud mentioned on the TV program is that Muslim gangs who dress as Coptic priests, offer a car lift to Christian girls and then abduct them. "The Coptic Church has warned its congregation against letting any unknown person dressed as a priest into their homes or accepting a lift," said Khalil. Several international organizations have criticized Egypt regarding forced Islamization of minors, among which is the International Religious Freedom report from 2005 to 2009, the Helsinki Commission Report of November 9th, 2006, Human Rights Watch Report of November 12th, 2007, and on November 10th, 2009, Christian Solidarity International issued a report quoting 25 cases of forced Islamization of minors. H.H. Pope Shenouda protested as far back as December 17th, 1976, during a conference held in Alexandria, saying: "There is a practice to convert Coptic girls to embrace Islam and marry them under terror to Muslim husbands." He demanded that the abducted girls be returned to their families. Sheikh Fawzy al-Zafzaf, former head of the Azhar committee for inter-religious dialogue told Al-Destoor Newspaper on November 17th, 2009, that he did not deny the existence of cases of abduction and forced Islamization of Coptic girls in Egypt. He called on the government to intervene to stop such acts by imposing just penalties on people who commit them. Pope Shenouda warned during a lecture on March 17, 2004 that he received thousands of letters of abduction of Christian girls through certain Islamic store chains which lure them away by being told they won a prize and have to go to an upper floor in the building to collect it. "Christian activists who work in cases of abductions and forced Islamization have a good idea about who the organizations, State Security officers and businessmen supporting the Islamization gangs," he explained. [...] Despite the existence of laws in Egypt setting the minimum age of conversion to Islam at 21, as well as legally forbidding marriage of a girl younger than 18 without the consent of her parent or guardian, "we still find fatwas (religious edicts) being issued to justify those criminal acts," says Khalil. The Chairman of the Al-Azhar Fatwa Committee, Sheikh Abdulah Mogawer, talking to Al-Arabya-net justified the marriage of two underage Christian girls (15 and 17 when abducted) by saying that they accept Islamization at the age of 16 . "According to Sharia, the main criteria for marriage to be valid is for the girl to reach puberty and is not tied to a specific age. Aisha married [consummated] the Prophet at the age of 9. Some girls might reach puberty at 14 or 15 years old, depending on her physical growth," said Mogawer.
For many women trapped in abusive marriages in Afghanistan, death can seem like the only way out. In the northwestern province of Herat, doctors this year have treated at least seventy women who attempted to take their own lives by setting themselves on fire. More than 40 of them died, in what doctors describe as a lingering and painful process. Al Jazeera's David Chater reports from Herat where he speaks to one woman who said she saw self-immolation as a means to escape a lifetime of abuse. Al Jazeera
 GENEVA — Swiss voters approved a move to ban the construction of minarets in a Sunday vote on a right-wing initiative that labeled the mosque towers as symbols of militant Islam, projections by a widely respected polling institute showed. The projections based on partial returns say Swiss swung from only 37 percent supporting the proposal a week ago to 59 percent in the actual voting. Claude Longchamp, leader of the widely respected gfs.bern polling institute, said the projection contracted by state-owned DRS television forecasts approval of the initiative by more than half the country’s 26 cantons, meaning it will become a constitutional amendment. The nationalist Swiss People’s Party describes minarets, the distinctive spires used in most countries for calls to prayer, as symbols of rising Muslim political and religious power that could eventually turn Switzerland into an Islamic nation. Muslims make up about 6 percent of Switzerland’s 7.5 million people. Many Swiss Muslims are refugees from the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. Fewer than 13 percent practice their religion, the government says, and Swiss mosques do not broadcast the call to prayer outside their buildings. “Forced marriages and other things like cemeteries separating the pure and impure — we don’t have that in Switzerland, and we do not want to introduce it” said Ulrich Schlueer, co-president of the Initiative Committee to ban minarets. The move by the People’s Party, the country’s largest party in terms of popular support and membership in parliament, is part of a broader European backlash against a growing Muslim population. It has stirred fears of violent reactions in Muslim countries and an economically disastrous boycott by wealthy Muslims who bank, shop and vacation in Switzerland. Taner Hatipoglu, president of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Zurich, said, “The initiators have achieved something everyone wanted to prevent, and that is to influence and change the relations to Muslims and their social integration in a negative way.” Hatipoglu said if in the long term the anti-Islam atmosphere continues, “Muslims indeed will not feel safe anymore.” The seven-member Cabinet that heads the Swiss government has spoken out strongly against the initiative, and local officials and rights defenders objected to campaign posters showing minarets rising like missiles from the Swiss flag next to a fully veiled woman. The People’s Party has campaigned mainly unsuccessfully in previous years against immigrants with campaign posters showing white sheep kicking a black sheep off the Swiss flag and another with brown hands grabbing eagerly for Swiss passports. The four minarets already attached to mosques in the country are not affected by the initiative. Geneva’s main mosque was vandalized Thursday when someone threw a pot of pink paint at the entrance. Earlier this month, a vehicle with a loudspeaker drove through the area imitating a muezzin’s call to prayer, and vandals damaged a mosaic when they threw cobblestones at the building. Daily Mail Blogs
 Swiss nationals are voting on whether to ban the building of minarets on the country's mosques.Opinion polls before Sunday's refendum, back by the country largest political party - the right-wing Swiss People's Party - indicated that it would be defeated, but only by a small margin. About 400,000 Muslims live in Switzerland - whose population is just under eight million. Most Muslim citizens are immigrants from the former Yugoslavia and Turkey. Although Islam is the country's second largest religion after Christianity, there are only four mosques with minarets in the whole country. Supporters of the proposed ban say minarets represent the growth of an alien ideology and legal system that have no place in the Swiss democracy.
"Forced marriages and other things like cemeteries separating the pure and impure - we don't have that in Switzerland, and we do not want to introduce it," Ulrich Schlueer, Co-President of the Initiative Committee to ban minarets, said. "Therefore, there's no room for minarets in Switzerland."
But Switzerland's Muslims have said that the referendum is fuelling anti-Islamic feeling in the country.
"The initiators have achieved something everyone wanted to prevent, and that is to influence and change the relations to Muslims and their social integration in a negative way, Taner Hatipoglu, the president of the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Zurich, said.
"We are frightened, and if the atmosphere continues to be like this and if the anti-Islamic hate increases, then the Muslims indeed will not feel safe anymore. This of course is very unpleasant."
Posters have appeared in many Swiss cities showing a dark, almost menacing figure of a woman, shrouded from head to foot in a black burka. Behind her is the Swiss flag, shaped like a map of the country, with black minarets shooting up out of it like missiles.
The cities of Basel, Lausanne and Fribourg banned the billboards, saying they painted a "racist, disrespectful and dangerous image" of Islam. The United Nations Human Rights Committee called the posters discriminatory and said Switzerland would violate international law if it bans minarets. There is also an online game, which has proved very popular, in which players can shoot down minarets as they rise up on the skylines of Switzerland's major cities.
Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher, reporting from Bern, said that there was a political message behind Sunday's referendum. "The reality is, as was described to me by a Swiss resident who is not a Swiss citizen, this is the right-wing Swiss People's Party sending out a message to Muslims: 'Know your place in Switzerland'," he said. "They believe, the right-wing People's Party, that if the Muslims get their mosques and their minarets it will follow on that they will want, perhaps, separate schooling and there could be a campiaign to turn Switzerland, of all places, into a place that practices Sharia." Earlier in November, Muslim prayer rooms across Switzerland opened their doors to the public, in the hope of reassuring voters that they had nothing to fear from minarets.
The Swiss government and business leaders have opposed a minaret ban, saying it would be harmful to the country's image abroad and disastrous for the Swiss economy.
The Swiss People's Party forced the referendum after collecting 100,000 signatures within 18 months from eligible voters supporting the motion. Al Jazeera
 Giving out the wrong message. Absurd Britannia Alert: "Spared jail, the forced marriage case father who told wife: 'I'll cut out your tongue,'" by James Tozer in the Daily Mail, November 19 A muslim who threatened to kill his wife and cut out her tongue after she blocked an arranged marriage for their daughter has been banned from seeing his family. In the first prosecution of its kind, Aurang Zeb has been convicted of breaching a Forced Marriage Protection Order taken out to stop him taking Rozina Akhtar out of Britain to marry. But despite his chilling threats he escaped imprisonment and was given community service. Last night campaigners condemned the sentence, saying it sent out the wrong message. 'There's clear evidence that this man threatened to kill his wife, so how can he be given community service?' said Shazia Qayum of Karma Nirvana, a group which helps victims of forced marriage. 'He should have been locked up. The law just isn't strong enough at the moment, and it's time the Government made forced marriage a criminal offence.'... Yes, and there is much more to be done as well. With thanks to JihadWatch
 by Joan Smith When demonstrators gathered in London yesterday to protest against sharia, the Archbishop of Canterbury was otherwise engaged with the Pope. It's almost two years since Rowan Williams caused an outcry when he suggested that recognising aspects of sharia would help social cohesion, and, every day, evidence accumulates to show how wrong he was.
Women, girls and young men desperately need protection from religious laws and the patriarchal attitudes associated with them, as two ghastly events demonstrated last week. First, on Monday evening, a young mother was found dying from head injuries in a street in West London. Geeta Aulakh worked as a receptionist at Sunrise Radio in Ealing and was on her way to pick up her sons from a childminder when she was attacked.
As soon as I learned that her right hand had been hacked off, I assumed it was an "honour" killing, and I'm unconvinced by the claim of a senior police officer that "it could be a defence wound". The right hand has huge significance in Sikh culture and Jasvinder Sanghera, founder of the South Asian women's organisation Karma Nirvana, has described in her autobiographical book Shame how important "honour" is in some Sikh communities.
Geeta Aulakh left her husband last year after a troubled marriage and was in the process of getting divorced. Her sister Anita Shinh said she had felt threatened for months: "She feared for her life, but she wasn't able to talk about it to anyone. She didn't want to worry us." Also last week, a Muslim man appeared in court in Blackburn: Aurang Zeb made history earlier this year when he was one of the first people to be served with a forced marriage protection order, preventing him taking his daughter Rozina Akhtar to Pakistan to marry her cousin against her will. After the order was imposed in February, Zeb tried to force his son to attack his mother and sister, and threatened to kill his wife and cut out her tongue. Last week he was convicted of breaching the order, forbidden to contact his family and ordered to carry out 200 hours of community service. Shazia Qayum of Karma Nirvana criticised the sentence, pointing out there was clear evidence that Zeb had threatened to kill his wife. "Community service? He should have been locked up," she said. The MP for Blackburn is the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, and earlier this year the Government's forced marriage unit started holding confidential forced marriage surgeries in the town. In the first nine months of last year, the unit gave advice or support in 1,308 cases nationally and intervened directly in 388, a 100 per cent increase on the same period in 2007.
These figures are shocking and encouraging at the same time: as The Independent on Sunday reported last year, the extent of forced marriage and "honour" crimes in this country is only beginning to be revealed. It's sometimes argued that forced marriage and "honour" crimes have nothing to do with religion, as though faith and cultural practices are separate. Obviously they aren't, and "honour" crimes happen in circumstances where ideas about the superiority of male relatives are entrenched through religion. There is a bigger point here: the shift away from a tribal social structure, where senior males expect to enjoy unchallenged authority based on religious texts, is a key condition of modernity.
It's supported not just by secularists but by Muslims, Sikhs, Jews and Christians who want to practise their faith in the modern world. They're on the right side of the argument – and of history. The Independent
When the Shari'a is Law
(Through a Muslimah's eyes)
Source: Guy DeWhitney: Heretics Crusade
 OTTAWA — A new citizenship guide for potential immigrants to Canada flatly declares that new Canadians cannot engage in "barbaric" cultural practices such as genital mutilation and "honour killings." The new guide, released Thursday by Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, says in a section called "Equality of Women and Men" that such practices are illegal and severely punishable under Canada's criminal laws. "Multiculturalism doesn't mean that anything goes. Multiculturalism means that we celebrate what's best about our backgrounds, but we do so on the basis of common Canadian values and respect for our laws," said Kenney. "It's no secret that we've seen instances of culturally rooted abuse of women, so-called 'honour killings,' forced marriages, and spousal abuse, and even female genital mutilation. We want to make sure that people understand that multiculturalism doesn't create an excuse to engage in those barbaric cultural practices." The updated guide, called Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship, also puts greater emphasis on the obligations of citizenship, such as getting a job, as well as military history. Kenney said it is a significant improvement from the 1997 Liberal version. "When you become a citizen, you're not just getting a travel document into hotel Canada," said Kenney. "You are inheriting a set of responsibilities, of obligations, as a citizen. And we will expect you to fulfil certain responsibilities, as a citizen. And I think to a certain extent that wasn't sufficiently emphasized in the old guide." Discover Canada also delves into Canada's historical — and sometimes controversial — past, through mention of the Hudson's Bay Company's trading rights, the War of 1812, the Rebellions of 1837-38, Confederation, Louis Riel's armed uprisings, the Quiet Revolution and Quebec sovereignty. The guide goes on to expound on the world wars, including an explanation of Remembrance Day and the poppy, all of which is prefaced at the beginning of the guide in a section called Defending Canada. "There is no compulsory military service in Canada. However, serving in the regular Canadian Forces (navy, army, and air force) is a noble way to contribute to Canada and make an excellent career choice," reads the guide. Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Montreal-based think-tank Association for Canadian Studies, says the new citizenship document represents a clear victory for the "well intentioned" proponents of Canada's military history, who have long argued that the country's pivotal participation in the two world wars should occupy a more central place in our national identity. But he says a recent Canada-wide survey by ACS highlights the limits of touting Canada's achievements in the First World War and Second World War as a way to strengthen citizens' sense of belonging in a country with such diverse experiences of those epic conflicts. Read more,,,, Source: Canada.Com
 Though no figures are kept on the number of hymenoplasty operations conducted each year in Turkey, the medical community agrees that demand is increasing for the “virginity restoration” procedure.
The issue of women's virginity is still an important factor in many relationships in Turkey, affecting women from all social and economic backgrounds and involving complex intersections of cultural and religious values.
The failure to maintain virginity until marriage can for a woman mean social alienation, forced marriage with an inappropriate match, physical abuse and even death in some cases.
While there is no true way to ascertain whether or not a woman has had intercourse, modern medicine offers the ability for women to ensure cultural validation of her supposed virginity: hymenoplasty, an increasingly popular elective surgery, the morality of which the medical community is divided on. “The rise in hymenoplasty doesn't mean that the hymen and virginity have gained importance, but indicates that women are increasingly possessed of more spending power and medical knowledge and that physicians are less conservative with regard to these operations,” psychologist Dilek Akıcı Tayanç explained in an interview with Sunday's Zaman.
“Women have gained economic strength and knowledge over the years, but this development hasn't enabled them to break the taboos regarding virginity, but to more effectively be able to protect themselves from the results of these taboos.” A popular İstanbul OB/GYN, agreeing to speak with Sunday's Zaman on the condition that she be identified only as Dr. Ö., performs an average of 10 hymenoplasty operations a month. In addition, she says 20-30 women make their way to her office each month for consultations related to the procedure. Read more here,,,, Source: Todayszaman H/T: Women Against Sharia
 Nearly 90 percent of Afghan women suffer from domestic abuse, according to the U.N. Shameen's brown eyes seem lost as she thinks about the one day she wants to forget, but it is all she can think about. She was raped and nearly stabbed to death by her husband just seven days before we met her. Her lips are quivering and her eyes full of fear. "He forced himself on me," she said. "All I could do was scream." She was married off 15 years ago when she was a teenager. Throughout those years she was tortured and abused, suffering daily beatings with an electrical wire or the metal end of a hammer. This was her normal life. "He chased after me with a hammer. He said if I made any noise he would put holes through me," Shameen said. Shameen and her husband could not conceive a child. And in Afghan society, it seems, the blame always falls on the woman. After one severe beating, she ran from her home and to the police station. Her husband promised the police he would not attack her anymore, so she gave in and agreed to go back home with him. Days later, Shameen's husband took her on a trip to visit her sister's grave -- a 15-year-old sister who was burned to death for displeasing her husband. Shameen says her younger sister was 11 years old when she was forced to marry an older man. He would beat and abuse her until one day he killed her. Read more at CNN H/T: WomenAgainstSharia
 In March of last year a severely autistic man with the mental age of three married a woman in Bangladesh, via the telephone. Three of Britain’s most senior judges intervened, ruling the marriage could not be legal under English law, as the man was unable to give his consent. This marriage, said Lord Justice Thorpe, was “sufficiently offensive to the conscience of the English court that the court should refuse to recognise it and should refuse to give effect to the law of Bangladesh and sharia law.” Only six months later, sharia courts that had formerly operated illegally in Britain were reclassified as “tribunals” under the Arbitration Act, allowing them to pass effectively legally binding judgments in many civil matters. However, with sharia law incompatible with English law and modern human rights norms, concerns were rightly raised that the sharia court system in Britain would grow into a parallel legal system. The disparity between English and sharia law was highlighted only a month later, as the House of Lords passed judgment in the case of a Lebanese woman who had claimed the right to remain in the UK with her son. An earlier Lebanese court decision, under sharia law, meant that, despite a history of abuse, her former husband would get automatic custody of the child when he turned seven. Lord Hope of Craighead observed that under the sharia judgment, “[…] there is a real risk of a flagrant denial of their article 8 rights [of the European Convention on Human Rights] if the appellant and her child were to be returned to Lebanon.” Lord Bingham of Cornhill added, rather triumphantly, that her case was supported “[…] by JUSTICE and Liberty.” Justice and liberty, Lord Cornhill appeared to say, are not supported by sharia. Not even in civil cases. For, in sharia, the rights of the man supersede the rights of the woman and children, Muslims are privileged over non-Muslims, and – where sharia is the dominant or sole form of law – cruel punishments, including death by stoning, hanging, etc., are meted out for adultery, homosexuality, apostasy, etc. Although it has generally been thought that five sharia courts were operating in Britain, just over a week ago Civitas revealed that there are now at least 85 sharia courts operating across the country. Read more here.... Source: Brussels Journal
 By Phyllis Chesler In 2001, the mother of an 11-year-old girl spirited her out of Gothenburg, in Sweden, and back to Somalia where she had her brutally genitally mutilated (and without anesthesia). The mother and two other women held her down while a man made sure that she would never experience sexual pleasure and would instead, experience a great deal of pain for the rest of her life. According to the English language Swedish media, “For several years after the violation the girl was subjected to repeated examinations by her mother who forced her fingers into her vagina to check that her virginity remained intact. She also repeatedly assaulted her daughter with various implements including books, a curtain rail and a belt.” Yesterday, eight years later, the girl, now 19-years-old, won a lawsuit in which she was awarded a monetary compensation from her mother for the “abuse and gross violation of (her bodily) integrity.” Damages for pain and suffering are yet to be decided. In Somalia, the girl would not have such legal recourse. My congratulations to the Swedish, Western legal system and to the bravery of this plaintiff. May we soon see many more such lawsuits and victories as well. Read more ...Source: Pajamas Media
 Are there current materials in the mosques and Islamic bookstores that still advocate men to marry (sexually abuse) young girls?By Dave Gaubatz The topic of Prophet Mohammad being a “pedophile” has been hashed out in media forums for years. My personal opinion is that when a 54-year-old man marries a 6-year-old girl, he is a pedophile, regardless if it were 1,400 years ago or today. Islamic scholars, Muslim organizations, liberals, politicians, and many of our law enforcement managers justify the sexual abuse because Mohammad lived 1,400 years ago and “things were different then.” Although I can’t give anyone who marries a 6-year-old a benefit of the doubt, billions of people throughout the world do. I will simply ask the question that if Prophet Mohammad is allegedly the man of great character, moral standing, and a “religious” leader who is supposed to be an example for Muslim men to follow, is it possible some of them still adhere to marrying young children? Are there current materials in the mosques and Islamic bookstores that still advocate men to marry (sexually abuse) young girls? For this article I will use only current statements from Islamic literature distributed and used to teach their worshippers the “Pure Islam” as preached by Islamic scholars now in every city throughout America. I will not use the Koran as reference, because it makes it too easy for Islamic scholars and liberals to say it is “1,400 hundred years old.” Therefore, I will stick to other materials used at Sunni mosques in 2009. Read more ... Source: FSM
By Walaa Hawari RIYADH: Despite continuous efforts by private and government bodies to eliminate marriages involving minors, such marriages do take place every so often. In a recent case, two sisters from Al-Jouf, aged 13 and 14, were married off by their father to two elderly men. “Their father held their hands as they signed their marriage contracts. They did not know what they were signing,” said the mother of the two girls, Nowayer. “When I was informed, I rushed to their father’s house and confronted the marriage contractor asking him whether he heard the girls consent to the marriages, and whether he had seen results of their premarital tests. He replied it was the father’s prerogative to marry them,” she added. Nowayer, an educational supervisor and mother of five girls and one boy, said she was in an abusive marriage for over eight years before filing for divorce. She said her ex-husband was aggressive, uncivilized and irresponsible. Read more ...Source: Arab News
 Divocee Nojoud Ali, 10, has written a
book about being a child bride in YemenBy Peter Allen A schoolgirl who was married by the age of eight today launched a new book about her extraordinary ordeal. Nojoud Ali, now aged 10, is in Paris promoting an autobiography which is set to be a worldwide bestseller. British publishers are already queuing up for the rights to a story which has been taken up by women’s rights groups worldwide. Last year a court in Yemen annulled Nojoud’s arranged marriage to a 29-year-old man. The minimum age for marriage is currently 15 years-old in the country, but parents are allowed to overrule the law if they judge that their daughter is ‘ready’ for marriage. Noujoud’s strict Muslim family had decided she was, forcing her to go and live with Faez Ali Thameur. The pair did consummate the marriage, it is claimed. Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the world, is notorious for its child brides. Noujoud’s unemployed father, Mohammad Ali Al-Ahdal, told the court he felt obliged to marry off his daughter after receiving repeated threats from the would-be husband and his entourage. Read more ...Source: Mail Online
Schools can have a major role to play to protect children from domestic violence such as 'honour'-based violence and forced marriage. Jenni Whitehead looks at a report by the House of Commons Home Affairs CommitteeA new report published by the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee looks at domestic violence, including forced marriage and so called ‘honour’-based violence, and its effect on children. The report pulls together findings from the recent investigation into how local authorities are tackling these issues, particularly that of forced marriage. The report calls for early intervention and prevention strategies and views schools as having a major role to play in early recognition and reporting and ongoing support of pupils at risk. Read more ... Source: Teaching Expertise
 Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, the Kingdom's grand mufti, prays during
the funeral of the Saudi woman and her daughter last FebruaryTen-year-old girls are ready for marriage, according to Saudi Arabia's most senior cleric. Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al Sheikh, the country's grand mufti, told Al Hayat newspaper that those saying ten or 12-year-old girls are too young to marry are being 'unfair' to them. Al Sheikh's comments come at a time when Saudi human rights groups have been pushing the government to put an end to marriages involving the very young and to define a minimum age for marriage. In the past few months, Saudi newspapers have highlighted several cases in which young girls were married off to much older men or very young boys. Read more ...Source: The Daily MailAbdul Aziz Al-Asheikh
Latest recipient of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award
 By Chris Smyth An NHS doctor was imprisoned, drugged, bound and gagged before being forced into marriage in Bangladesh, it emerged today, as a British judge issued an order telling her parents not “to pester, harass or intimidate” her. Dr Humayra Abedin, 32, was held captive for four-and-a-half months by her family and was forced to marry while under the influence of drugs. She was freed by a court in Bangladesh and returned to Britain on Tuesday. In the High Court in London this morning, Mr Justice Coleridge issued injunctions against Dr Abedin’s parents, a paternal uncle and the man she was forced to marry. He declared that it was “vitally important for the message to be understood in those communities where this kind of behaviour is sanctioned” that the courts will act “swiftly and decisively” in cases were there had been such a “gross abuse of an individual’s human rights”. Outside court Dr Abedin said: “I’m very happy to be back, but I’d like to get back to my life. I’m looking forward to starting my job.” She said she was grateful to the support she had received from the media and told others in her position: “Don’t give up hope. There is hope.” Read more ...Source: Times OnlineH/T: Dhimmi Watch
A Saudi court has rejected a plea to divorce an eight-year-old girl married off by her father to a man who is 58, saying the case should wait until the girl reaches puberty, a lawyer involved told AFP. "The judge has dismissed the plea (filed by the mother) because she does not have the right to file such a case, and ordered that the plea should be filed by the girl herself when she reaches puberty," lawyer Abdullah Jtili told AFP in a telephone interview after Saturday's court decision. The divorce plea was filed in August by the girl's divorced mother with a court at Unayzah, 220 kilometres (135 miles) north of Riyadh just after the marriage contract was signed by the father and the groom. "She doesn't know yet that she has been married," Jtili said then of the girl who was about to begin her fourth year at primary school. Read more ...Source: AFP H/T: Dhimmi Watch
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"There is no law that prohibits the marriage of a girl under 18," says the randy old goat, and he's right. After all, Muhammad did it:
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