MY MIND: Fate of our young girls
LIFE’S IRONIES. The fight for the rights of young girls who are forced into early marriages seems to be hitting a dead end. What can one do?
While the bitter cold of a harsh winter is biting, the northern wind is blowing on fragile tents that are sheltering thousands of Syrian refugees in camps. The worry of hypothermia and other life-endangering threats seems to be the main concern of many who care. The fate of children who now have lost an important part of their childhood, remains on the priority list of many charitable organisations. The organisations try hard to achieve as much as their limited resources permit.
Child marriages
In this mayhem of human calamity, another subtle tragedy is taking place that is of no less importance than all the above but is unfortunately left without much attention. There are tens if not hundreds of young girls aged between 14 to 17 years, who are given away in marriage, most of the time to men who are much older than them. The saddest part of this story unfolds when these wolves dressed as men, who took advantage of the vulnerability of the needy families, turn these innocent girls into objects that would satisfy their never-ending lust.
A few days or weeks after a wedding ceremony whose only purpose is to legitimise their monstrous actions, they leave, never to return. Left behind, is a devastated young girl who doesn’t understand what befell her, and who is, sometimes, left with the seed of this evil person growing in her womb.
Sold to whoever desires to purchase a young virgin, sometimes for the need of money, other times because the family sees in this wedding a ray of hope from this outsider, who might take their daughter, and them too, out of this camp, out of their misery. Alas most of these dreams are crushed on shores of reality, it’s over, even before it starts.
Fate of the girls
The crime of girls being married off at such a young age, is not unique in this case. In some countries, such as Yemen, there are sad stories of girls as young as nine years of age who are forced to marry old men, some of them die because they are defiled on the first night of the wedding, some commit suicide, but most come to terms with their destiny and accept their ill fate.
I feel uncomfortable writing about this subject at such an advanced time in our history, at a time that we think humanity has finally broken away from its dark past of slavery and savage attitude. However, it seems we are still struggling with understanding even the most basic of all principles that will bring unity and progress to all humankind: Equality between men and women.
What next?
And while we can attribute savagery to backwardness and lack of education, one is saddened when in some of the most advanced countries of the world, disrespect to women remains rampant. Above all, I’m dumbfounded when I see that some women accept chauvinistic behaviour, thinking that with time humanity will grow wiser. Until such thoughts exist, positive change will remain an unachievable goal.
INCIDENT
A 13-year-old Yemeni girl died of internal injuries four days after a family-arranged marriage to a man almost twice her age, a human rights group said. Ilham Mahdi al Assi died early last year in a hospital in Yemen’s Hajja province, the Shaqaeq Arab Forum for Human Rights said, quoting a medical report. She was married the previous Monday in a traditional arrangement known as a ‘swap marriage’, in which the brother of the bride also married the sister of the groom, it said.
-dailymail.co.uk
