The Silent Tragedy of Child Marriage

By Robert Spencer

…In Malaysia in December 2010, a government minister, Nazri Aziz, said at a press conference that the Malaysian government had no plans to legislate against child marriage, because of Islam: “If the religion allows it, then we can’t legislate against it.” And in July 2011, the Saudi cleric Salih bin Fawzan, a member of Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council, issued afatwa of his own, declaring that Islamic law set no minimum age for marriage at all, and that therefore girls could be lawfully married off “even if they are in the cradle.”

As with other aspects of Islamic law and practice, immigration has extended child marriage into Western countries. The Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO) declared that in England in 2010, at least thirty girls in Islington, a neighborhood of greater London, were forced into marriage, and that some were as young as nine years old. In Sweden, there are several hundred reported incidences of child marriage every year.

Who will speak up for these girls? Apparently the Western “human rights” organizations largely believe that it would be “Islamophobic” to do so. And so the little girl who bled to death in Afghanistan last week was not the first, and she will not by any means be the last.

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Unthinkable horror in Afghanistan: 8-year-old “bride” of mullah bleeds to death on her “wedding night”

WARNING: IF YOU ARE AT ALL SENSITIVE, SKIP THIS.

By Robert Spencer

The story below is graphic. But it has to be told, as it graphically illustrates the human cost of Islamic child marriage and the treatment of women and girls as commodities.

“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

Muslims take this seriously and imitate Muhammad in this. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: “Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed.”

The Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl “a divine blessing,” and advised the faithful: “Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house.”

The Qur’an also allows for marriage to pre-pubescent girls, stipulating that Islamic divorce procedures “shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (65:4).

“The 8-years-old bride who was brutally killed on first night of her wedding,” by Mustafa Kazemi on Facebook, May 17 (thanks to all who sent this in):

ADVISORY – This article includes information that may be undesirable, discomfort & upset some audiences.The 8-years-old girl whose story you’ll read in coming lines did not make it to the 2nd night of her wedding nor did she make it to her 9th or 10th birthday….

…..he took out the sharp knife that he always carried with himself in his pocket and tore apart the girl’s…..

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Indonesian government placing Christian children from West Papua in Islamic boarding schools, sending them back home to spread Islam

By Robert Spencer

“These schools have one aim: to send their graduates back to Christian-majority Papua to spread their muscular form of Islam.”

Islamic supremacism in modern, moderate Indonesia: “They’re taking our children,” by Michael Bachelard for The Age, May 4 (thanks to Stephen):

Johanes Lokobal sits on the grass that cushions the wooden floor of his little, one-room house. He warms his hands at a fire set in the centre. From time to time a pig, out of sight in an annex, squeals and slams itself thunderously against the adjoining wall.The village of Megapura in the central highlands of Indonesia’s far-eastern province of West Papua is so remote that supplies arrive by air or by foot only. Johanes Lokobal has lived here all his life. He does not know his exact age: “Just old,” he croaks. He’s also poor. “I help in the fields. I earn about 20,000 rupiah [$2] per day. I clean the school garden.” But in a hard life, one hardship particularly offends him. In 2005, his only son, Yope, was taken to faraway Jakarta. Lokobal did not want Yope to go. The boy was perhaps 14, but big and strong, a good worker. The men responsible took him anyway. A few years later, Yope died. Nobody can tell Lokobal how, nor exactly when, and he has no idea where his son is buried. All he knows, fiercely, is that this was not supposed to happen.

“If he was still alive, he would be the one to look after the family,” Lokobal says. “He would go to the forest to collect the firewood for the family. So I am sad.”

The men who took Yope were part of an organised traffic in West Papuan youth. A six-month Good Weekend investigation has confirmed that children, possibly in their thousands, have been enticed away over the past decade or more with the promise of a free education. In a province where the schools are poor and the families poorer still, no-cost schooling can be an irresistible offer.

But for some of these children, who may be as young as five, it’s only when they arrive that they find out they have been recruited by “pesantren”, Islamic boarding schools, where time to study maths, science or language is dwarfed by the hours spent in the mosque. There, in the words of one pesantren leader, “They learn to honour God, which is the main thing.” These schools have one aim: to send their graduates back to Christian-majority Papua to spread their muscular form of Islam….

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Sharia in action in Iran: 850,000 female children are married

By Robert Spencer

“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

Muslims take this seriously and imitate Muhammad in this. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: “Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed.”

The Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl “a divine blessing,” and advised the faithful: “Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house.”

The Qur’an also allows for marriage to pre-pubescent girls, stipulating that Islamic divorce procedures “shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (65:4).

“Gender and Society In Iran – Part 1: The Debate Over Child Marriage, Including Child Brides Wed To Adult Men,” by Y. Mansharof and A. Savyon for MEMRI, April 24:

…Under Iranian law, girls may marry at 13 and boys at 15, and children under 10 may marry with the approval of their guardian and the court.[1]According to official statistics, about one million children, even under age 10, are married. The statistics also show that 85% of these one million married children are girls – meaning that most of them are married to grown men….

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How To Beat Your Child Bride