The protection of children is one of the essential principles of civilized society. Yet the duty to safeguard the vulnerable seems in danger of being undermined out of sensitivity towards some minorities.
In September, a 12-year-old Yemeni girl forced into marriage died during childbirth. Her baby also died, according to the Seyaj Organization for the Protection of Children.
Yet some Iranian lawmakers push to lower the legal age of marriage for girls back to 9 from 13 years of age. The person who announced the idea was Mohammad Ali Isfenani, the chairman of the Islamic Republic’s parliament’s legal affairs committee. Isfenani called Iran’s current civil legislation, which sets the minimum legal age of marriage for girls at 13-years-old, “un-Islamic and illegal,” saying, “We must regard nine as being the appropriate age for a girl to have reached puberty and qualified to get married. To do otherwise would be to contradict and challenge Islamic Sharia law.”
Isenfani’s clarion call for prepubescent marriage comes at the same moment a new report from the Union for the Protection of Children’s Rights (UPCR) found 75 Iranian girls less than 10-years-old were forced to marry in the past two months, part of a sharp rise in the overall number of Iranian child brides under the age of 10.
According to UPCR, of the 342,000 Iranian marriages among girls under 18-years-old registered in 2010, at least 713 marriages involved girls under 10-years-old, more than twice as many as were registered in the prior three years. Moreover, of these underage marriages, 42,000 involved girls between the ages of 10 to 14.
Most of these child marriages take place in predominantly Islamic countries spread throughout the Middle East, South Asia and Africa.
The deeply rooted Islamic attachment to prepubescent marriage finds religious justification in the Prophet Muhammad’s marriage to a six-year-old child bride, a marriage consummated when she was nine-years-old …
When are we going to understand these primitive behaviors (religion) are no longer needed in our modern society with much more advanced morality.
In September, a 12-year-old Yemeni girl forced into marriage died during childbirth. Her baby also died, according to the Seyaj Organization for the Protection of Children.
Yet some Iranian lawmakers push to lower the legal age of marriage for girls back to 9 from 13 years of age. The person who announced the idea was Mohammad Ali Isfenani, the chairman of the Islamic Republic’s parliament’s legal affairs committee. Isfenani called Iran’s current civil legislation, which sets the minimum legal age of marriage for girls at 13-years-old, “un-Islamic and illegal,” saying, “We must regard nine as being the appropriate age for a girl to have reached puberty and qualified to get married. To do otherwise would be to contradict and challenge Islamic Sharia law.”
Isenfani’s clarion call for prepubescent marriage comes at the same moment a new report from the Union for the Protection of Children’s Rights (UPCR) found 75 Iranian girls less than 10-years-old were forced to marry in the past two months, part of a sharp rise in the overall number of Iranian child brides under the age of 10.
According to UPCR, of the 342,000 Iranian marriages among girls under 18-years-old registered in 2010, at least 713 marriages involved girls under 10-years-old, more than twice as many as were registered in the prior three years. Moreover, of these underage marriages, 42,000 involved girls between the ages of 10 to 14.
Most of these child marriages take place in predominantly Islamic countries spread throughout the Middle East, South Asia and Africa.
The deeply rooted Islamic attachment to prepubescent marriage finds religious justification in the Prophet Muhammad’s marriage to a six-year-old child bride, a marriage consummated when she was nine-years-old …
When are we going to understand these primitive behaviors (religion) are no longer needed in our modern society with much more advanced morality.
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