I have written on this subject before but the culture and traditions of some countries continues to allow child brides to be given in marriage to adult men. It is often done in countries that are impoverished and the idea behind these marriages is to relieve the financial burden on families that are struggling to survive. While these child/adult marriages are often done with the intention of delaying normal marital, sexual relations between the “child” and the adult until puberty…that is often not the actual outcome; it is a crime against nature to force the body of a child to endure sexual activity with an adult.
This was illustrated very clearly to many this past month when a young 13 old girl was given in marriage to a 23 year old Yemeni man. He and his in-laws allegedly arranged a sort of deal for him to be given the 13 yr old bride and for his brother in law to be given HIS sister in marriage to avoid the high cost of a bride price. According to the new pieces i have seen, it appears that the 13 year old bride was not only a reluctant bride when it came to sexual relations…the groom supposedly took her to a clinic to allegedly get medicated to render her helpless to resist his advances.
When the clinic denied him…he supposedly took her home and somehow was able to get himself a type of male enhancement drug to help him perform the sexual act because he was having trouble having intercourse. The young girls mother says that her daughter told her in the hospital shortly before she died that her husband tied her up and raped and sodomized her. This after he had already allegedly forced her to have sex and caused her internal injuries that required a trip back to that clinic.
The news pieces said that they adviced the husband to avoid having relations with his wife for approximately 10 days. He had carried her into the clinic because she could not walk. The injuries evidently became more life threatening after he allegedly returned home and continued having sex. The young girl was admitted to the hospital days after the wedding, where she died from ruptured reproductive organs. Her mother says she appeared as if she had been butchered. How do you look your child in the eye and know that what had been done to them will result in their death and you were powerless to change the outcome?
It is hard to think of a human being abusing someone so callously, as to think of their sexual needs exclusively to the well-being of the other person, outside of a predator or rapist who attacks another person purely for this purpose. I am sure that the young brides family had no idea that her husband could be capable of such treatment of their daughter or they may not have agreed to the marriage arrangement…yet, this is what happened. It is a tragedy.
Not only was her body and spirit abused…but she was not protected in any way from a further sexual assault on her body once she was brought into the clinic the first time. She was a 13 year old girl and she had to have been fearful. She suffered greatly and lost her life simply because she was female and vulnerable to her situation because of where she was born and into a culture which allows such things to happen to those unfortunate enough to be in her position.
Just today, there was another news piece about another girl; an 11 year old child. She was also allegedly hospitalized with damage to her genitals. She too was a child bride; this is unacceptable.
It is a human rights issue. Poverty and ignorance are no excuse for these situations to continue. Families have to protect their children from the potential of this kind of treatment by not giving children in marriage. It is wrong to subject them to the sexual torture of their bodies and possible pregnancies… to protect them even from a potential death from young bodies that strain to give birth when they are yet barely matured to the point of conceiving a child in the first place; and truly, some of them are not even that physically mature.
There are some people and cultures that believe marrying children off before they are considered adults will help to avoid premature sexual activity. While it might prevent them from having sex before they are married…it in no way guarantees that they will not have sex until they are an adult; willingly or by force. Because, there is no way to insure that once a child is legally, morally, or spiritually entered into a marriage that the adult partner won’t try to enforce a sexual relationship with that child.
Empoverished nations must be given alternatives to joining children in marriage to adults as a means of relieving financial burdens upon their families. Educating people to the use of birth control to help reduce the number of children born to impoverished parents would be helpful. Creating an awareness program about the dangers of forced sexual activity upon the bodies of children. Holding offenders legally responsible for death or for damage caused to the children that this happens to; making it a crime to harm a child in this way.
Creating a means of earning a higher wage for families in those areas where these kind of arrangements take place; so that they don’t see the need to marry off their children while they are still yet children. How horrible to have such a situation within your own family or circle of acquaintance. No caring parent would want to have to live with such an outcome on their conscience. I hope that those who have a voice and have power will find the courage to change the way things are so that no family has to live with the knowledge that they have failed to protect their child from such a tragedy.
It makes me angry, and it makes me sad that people who are in the position of stopping this abuse of children do not; we must demand accountability and responsibility of our leaders, our religious counselors, law makers and our own family members!
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I personally know incarcerated men who have lived in prison for decades who did nothing as heinous, unjust and vile as what this “culture” has perpetrated!
WHAT WILL IT TAKE, Rainy, to bring mankind to their senses and motivate people to do the right things for the right reasons?
Back to my prayer mat…
Sadly,
Mother Connie