An eight-year old Saudi Arabian girl who was married off by her father to a 58-year-old man has been told she cannot divorce her husband until she reaches puberty.
Lawyer Abdu Jtili said the divorce petition was filed by the unnamed girl's divorced mother in August after the marriage contract was signed by her father and the groom. "The judge has dismissed the plea because she [the mother] does not have the right to file, and ordered that the plea should be filed by the girl herself when she reaches puberty," lawyer Abdullah Jtili told the AFP news agency.
Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 8:53 pm Post subject: Human rights
On our planet there are innumerable races and societies each with their own individual combination of tradition,culture and constitutional order.It seems nowadays that the more alien such establishments are to our own the more we accept the differences i.e indigenous tribes of Asia,South America and Africa where often certain traditional rituals are from our perspective not acceptable.
In the past though for example the various Christian convictions especially the catholics have sent missionaries to isolated areas of these countries to attempt to change these constitutional differences of religion,culture and law simply because the societies did not live by the moral civil expectations of for example Catholic christianity(after the moto"convert the savages or heathens" to be Christians and civilized and live by our values and moral laws).When a 16 year old male Watusi in Africa gets circumcised,a Inuit Eskimo child of ten gets married,a Indian Hinti wife gets burnt alive at her husbands funeral or a woman is allowed to destroy the life of her unborn child,who can stand above all and declare what is acceptable or not rather like a world Police of moral behaviour?.Of course for us these examples are terrible cases of barbaric human behaviour(thats my opinion though with one exception)but as barbaric as it is for our undertsanding of social human behaviour we cannot self proclaim our versions and understandings of tradition and culture to be head and above all those that are different.
New born Hindu females are often promised by religious law marriages on reaching pre puberty age to older men and to those they have never even met even those born for example in Britain(where the queen is head of the Church and not the Pope).Sometimes 12 year old Hindu girls born in Britain are taken away from their British schools by their families to marry the from birth promised man in India.One could say that any such person born in Britain and holding a British passport is obliged and bound by the law of the country but being British is a situation of civil law not religious.Indian Sieks are bound by their religion to wear in public a head turban which makes wearing for example a motorbike helmut impossible.
Other societies other traditions,whether political,traditional or cultural and just as we cannot accept such differences being imposed onto us by other cultures we cannot impose our own versions of society, cultutal laws and traditions onto theirs however barbaric some things certainly seem to us.
What we can do though is boycott trade and or end relationships with those societies we believe breach reasonable human conduct untill changes for the better are made(in our opinion).Human rights for example in China,Tibet and Malayasia are by our standards totally unacceptable and when our own countries trade with them and we buy their products we pacively contribute to sustaining these breaches of course.We can also offer so called political asylum when individuals approach and request as such but this is by no means in reality so simple as which USA or British Embassy will hold back a 8 year old Saudi child away from Saudi authorities after she has claimed she is suffering though by Saudi law this canot be a fact!!?.Not easy..unfortunetly.Legal Public beatings and even executions are still happening everyday on our planet but a one planet "boss"is a far terrible scenerio in my opinion .Still thank goodness for Amnesty International!.
There was a historic case in Yemen not too long ago where an eight-year-old girl WAS granted a divorce, something which was unheard of previously, so sometimes international organizations like Amnesty International and Equality Now can make a difference, particularly if the country happens to have signed an international treaty protecting children.
The sale of females, whether into marriage, prostitution, or any other form of slavery, has to stop. People are not objects to be bought, sold, and traded. And it is obvious that an eight-year-old cannot give informed consent.
Patriarchal religions are particularly evil. Even in the United States, Orthodox Jewish marriages include a documented bride price. While Orthodox Jews claim that this is not the sale of a woman, and in most cases the women are of age and do give informed consent to the marriage, if they get divorced they cannot remarry under Orthodox Jewish law without the consent of their ex-husbands (their owners), and many men withhold that consent out of spite, even if they remarry themselves. I've forgotten the name for such women, but there are many of them, and the word means "chained," as they are chained to their former husbands by Othodox Jewish law. Hopefully, a few have enough sense to abandon such an unjust religion, but often their entire identity, their friends, family, and community, etc., are bound up with it, so they remain "chained."
It is a real shame that Yemen is more advanced that Saudi Arabia, and it is totally disgusting that the United States supports the Saudis for their oil despite their lack of human rights. The same customs that the U.S. condemns in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran, like purdah and honor killings, are considered to be perfectly acceptable in Saudi Arabia. It is a double standard based on money and politics and it clearly demonstrates our hypocrisy.
A Double standard(?)thats an understatement me thinks and coupled with endless cases of hypocrisy these are just the kind of ingredients that contribute to producing a cocktail of anti USA emotions.Not good for this planet to have a" World Police force"and even worse a Hypocritical one at that.
I sent my friend a Xmas card this year.It was a cartoon of the Birth of Christ:The Three shepherds etc were waiting outside of the candle lit stable when Joeseph comes out all smiling with the new born in his arms and says to those waiting in anticipation outside....."its a girl"!.A famous feminist once said that before women could be liberated men would have to be first liberated.That all world religions have gods and not godessess in ultimate charge will also have to end and finally return to gender equality.Somehow I cant see that happening but who knows one day we might witness a female pope just as we have witnessed a coloured president being"elected".These things are representive of power and it is no accident that societies have in time adopted religions which are dominated by males.But heres something nearer"to home";
Untill the 1970īs women were not allowed to vote in Switzerland with one Swiss federal Cantor(local state) only recently after holding a peoples referendum voted out the old law making it ilegal for women to vote.
In Germany untill about the year 2000 it was not possible for a husband to be convicted of raping his wife!.Untill then it was considered a breach of marital duty which was signed sealed by the marital contract at the State registration office.Only since last month was it possible in Germany to marry in a Church without previously marrying in a State registration office.Of course charges of rape come under statue of limitation(clever eh!!?)and few ex wives have been able therefore to charge their ex husbands with rape.Well thats just a few examples of the mud in our back yard so its obviously going to be worse in those countries where the religion still has its middle age influences and ties.
"...Untill then it was considered a breach of marital duty which was signed sealed by the marital contract at the State registration office..."
Should read;
"...Untill then it was considered a breach of marital duty FOR EITHER THE WIFE OR THE HUSBAND to refuse to sleep with the other partner,which was signed and sealed by the marital contract at the State registration office...".
"...Untill then it was considered a breach of marital duty FOR EITHER THE WIFE OR THE HUSBAND to refuse to sleep with the other partner,which was signed and sealed by the marital contract at the State registration office..."
If a "breach of marital duty" was grounds for divorce, I'm amazed that anyone in Germany managed to remain married.
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