Sunday, September 15, 2013

Child Marriage - Max Gaddis

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/15/world/meast/yemen-child-bride/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Last week, an 8 year old Yemeni girl named Rawan has died after being married off to a 40 year old man. It is believed that sexual intercourse with the man resulted in her uterus and other sexual organs being torn open, causing internal bleeding. Her father would not even confess the crime had been committed. He brought another girl claiming to be Rawan to the police station to prove that she had not died. This is not the first time a young girl has died from child marriage. The girl's parents are too poor to afford otherwise (or so they think) so they marry her off to a rich, older man. This usually leads to the young girl's death, and then the old man goes out and gets another girl, and another, and another. Some child brides have tried to stop this practice. An 11 year old girl spoke out against her parents forcing her to marry an older man on youtube, even though her parents denied it, another 10 year old girl filed for a divorce, and got one. When people tried to set the standard for marriage at 18 years of age, the government said it was "un-islamic" to set an age for marriage.

My opinion is that people should marry for love, and children need their innocence. If the family needs money, they should get jobs. Child marriage is just a ticket for rapists to rape innocent girls. Do their parents really think this is the best way for them? Why didn't Rawan's dad speak up? Isn't he sad about the death of the little girl, or were they just in it for the money? What happens when you only have boys, not girls? This is wrong, and also a crime.

7 comments:

  1. This is really sad and disturbing. A child being forced into marriage at a young age is wrong. The little girl, Rawan, was forced to marry and succumbed to death all because her parents need money. Who can be that desperate for money. MONEY. Wow. And for the dad to try and pretend that she want dead, that was just horrible.

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  2. There is no words to describe how horrible this is. What type of parents send their 8 year old daughter to marry a grown man? Wow. The things people to for money now days.

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  3. This is sickening! I have heard of society forcing children to grow up too fast, but this is taking it way to far!

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  4. this is so sad, I cant get over this.. I hate the fact that people think these things are okay. they are children. It is wrong.

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  5. This is just awful, kids are kids. Their happiness and purity is being taken away from them at such a young age.

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  6. This is so bad. how could someones parents marry them off. Kids need to be kids and keep their innocence

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  7. this was sickening to read, especially those first sentences. This is so horrible, so so SO horrible. They pretty much sold their child's life and virginity to someone but sugarr coated it, calling it "Marriage".

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