Islamic Lawmaker: Banning child marriage un-Islamic, violates men's rights

Recently, 13-year-old Yemeni child bride Elham Assi was tied down and raped by her 23-year-old husband in the exercise of his marital rights. She soon bled to death.

Human rights advocates throughout the world are up in arms against child marriage . . . even in Yemen, where a reinforced push to ban child marriage is underway. There is resistance.

Sheik Mohammed Hamzi is an official of the Islamist Yemeni opposition party Islaah and the imam of the Al-Rahman mosque in the Yemeni capital of Sana. As one might expect from a politician of any stripe, he manages to speak from both sides of his mouth in a single interview reported by the LA Times.

On the one hand, Hamzi claims that there are very, very few child brides in Yemen:

Just ask my mother and sisters how many times they’ve found a little girl getting married at the marriages they’ve attended. Not many.

There is no problem here with child marriage. These cases of young girls getting married are exceptions. These organizations that are promoting for this law couldn’t find any examples except for those of Nujoud [a 9-year-old who demanded a divorce from her 30-year-old pedophile husband] and Elham.

OK, if it doesn’t happen too often, Hamzi should be happy to support banning the practice. After all, what would be the point of showing your people to be sick monsters who rape children to death if it isn’t a “right” you value?

Here’s a third, Hamzi, and wait, what percentage marry before 18?

An 11-year-old Yemeni girl who was was married to a man in country’s Hajja province was hospitalized today with genital injuries, said a human rights group in Sanaa.

It was the second incident involving a child bride in the last week. A 13-year-old girl died after being sexually assaulted by her adult husband. Both girls were married in the country’s rural Hajja province.

The 11-year-old girl was married last year only under the condition that the adult husband would wait until she reached puberty to consummate the marriage. He did not wait, nor do many of the men who marry young brides, says Amal Basha, director of the Arabic Sisters Forum.

An estimated 50 percent of women in Yemen are married before age 18, some as young as 8.

50 percent before age 18. Now, even in the West, girls can marry with parental consent as young as 15. Without a detailed breakdown, we can’t really tell how many of these girls are being wed before they are emotionally — or even physically — ready for such things.

Under current law in Yemen, girls may wed at 15, and only may marry younger with parental consent. The proposed law would set the age of consent at 16, even if the parents consent to a younger marriage.

Oh, right. That other side of Hamzi’s mouth, forgot about that. Hamzi also comments:

I am against the child marriage law because it restrains the freedom of others. When a certain age [for marriage] is set, it violates the rights of others. For example, imagine a young man of 13 or 14 years of age who wants to have sex. … This is a violation of his rights.

A violation of the teenage boy’s right to have sex, but not of the pre-teen girl’s not to be raped?

Hamzi continues, demonizing his fellow countrymen and women for not wanting to see little girls raped:

It’s all a Western agenda they are following. They get paid from the West to make us to believe in Western culture. This is very bad because our culture is different here.

Ah, yes. It’s the evil West, rearing its ugly head and telling women that they should have rights, too. That they shouldn’t be sold to “husbands” as property, so they can be strapped down and used like shrieking sex dolls.

But what else motivates them, Hamzi?

No one wants to marry these women’s-rights activists anyway. They’re just depressed that they are not married and jealous.

What’s really eating Hamzi? Could it be that he wants young Yemeni men to emulate the Prophet, Muhammed?

Volume 7, Book 62, Number 88:
Narrated ‘Ursa:

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).

It would explain why ABC reports that various clerics have declared those supporting the child marriage law “apostates”, as they believe child marriage is ordained by their god. After all, if Mohammed was a child rapist, and proud of it, why shouldn’t everyone else be?

Related articles:

1. Obama in Court: Same-Sex Marriage Equal to Incest, Child Marriage
2. Vatican accused of flouting UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
3. Hartzler: Gays "Shouldn’t Feel Bad" That She Passed Constitutional Amendment Banning Marriage Equality
4. Laura Bush comes out . . . as supporting gay marriage, abortion rights
5. Rick Perry’s Confusing Stance On Marriage Equality And States’ Rights

Jenny Donati is webmistress and co-editor of Secular News Daily. Jenny is an outspoken secularist who believes firmly in the separation of church and state. She demands evidence to support arguments, and holds herself to the same standard. She doesn't write about herself in the third person . . . but there's a first time for everything.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry.