[proudofthesouth]

When I read stuff like this its almost enough to turn me back into the hardcore feminazi I once was. Why are females so hated (or is it feared?) in Africa and the Middle East?

[SteveMcKing]

That continent is beyond hope, and I resent my taxes going to "save" them in any way. It only causes civil war and worsens the problems as told in this story.

[Age of Reason]

It's no worse than the opposite extreme we have here in the West.

[Riverman94610]

A grown man marrying a seven year old child!
What do they TALK about???

[martin_fierro]

Girls into wives

Shame on me.

I thought this was going to be about something else entirely.

[Txsleuth]

I remember as a little girl, seeing pictures in the National Geographic magazines, and new stories on TV, about Africa and Asia, and other countries with "weird" customs and disgusting poverty....

Even as a child I wondered how I was so blessed to live where I did, in a house so wonderful, going to school, with clean clothes...etc...

Amazingly, 40 years later, I read this article and wonder the same thing....just, so sad....

[ddtorque]

ping

[teenyelliott]

I am speechless. And horrified. And so sad that there are so many "humans" in this world who care nothing about the innocence and beauty of childhood.

I don't care where you live or what your education level might be. This story is cruel and heartbreaking.

It is their custom to not tell these babies what lies ahead of them? I would guess they are too ashamed to tell their child what they are doing to them.

[eccentric]

There are, according to child-rights activists, an estimated 50 million Tihuns scattered across the world: young teen or even preteen girls whose innocence is being sacrificed to arranged marriages, often to older men.

Just out of curiosity, where do they get these numbers?

[Cicero]

It's not necessarily a bad thing. Marriages that are arranged that young are not consummated. In a sense the husband takes on a kind of parental role until the girl is older.

From everything that I have heard, arranged marriages work out just as well, or perhaps better than, marriages in which the man and woman choose each other.

There's a tradition in early Judaism and Christianity that although the parents arranged the marriage, the bride or groom could say "no." The marriage of Rachel to Isaac is typical. The whole thing is arranged and she does not see her husband, but she is given a chance to consent.

[rintense]

I saw the movie 'Osama' last week and it broke my heart.

[aShepard]

Now, if the rich countries only gave much more funding to the UN, the UN could take care of all these problems, and there would be no more suffering anywhere in the world.

[RonDog]

Here is a SHORT EXCERPT (just under the 300 word limit) from www.kansascity.com (via Google NEWS):

Posted on Sun, May. 29, 2005


HEATHER STONE/Chicago Tribune

Tihun Nebiyu, 7, (center) sits under an umbrella in
the front yard behind her new husband Ayalew
Dessie, 17 (holding an umbrella) and her sister,
Dinke Nebiyu, 10 (far left), who was also married.
Girls into wives

One 7-year-old's wedding tells the story of 50 million child brides

By PAUL SALOPEK

Chicago Tribune

“In truth, if a girl reaches 13, she is already too old to be married. I know some people say this is uncivilized. But they don't live here. So how can they judge?”— Nebiyu Melese, 54, Tihun's father

THE CENTRAL HIGHLANDS OF ETHIOPIA — Tihun Nebiyu the goat herder doesn't want to marry. She is adamant about this. But in her village nobody heeds the opinions of headstrong little girls.

That's why she's kneeling in the filigreed shade of her favorite thorn tree, dropping beetles down her dress. Magic beetles.

“When they bite you here — ” Tihun explains gravely, pressing the scrabbling insects into her chest through the fabric of her tattered smock “ — it makes your breasts grow.”

This is Tihun's own wishful brand of sorcery — a child's desperate measure to turn herself into an adult. Then maybe, just maybe, her family would respect her wishes not to wed. She could rebuff the strange man her papa has chosen to be her husband. And she wouldn't have to bear his dumb babies.

Tihun kneels in the dirt, eyes closed: an elfin figure whose smile is made goofily endearing by two missing front teeth. Seconds pass. But nothing happens. Eventually, she starts to giggle. The beetles have escaped — by crawling up her neck.

“It doesn't work!” Tihun says, disgusted. She heaves an exaggerated sigh and squints out across the yellow-grass hills surrounding her world: “I will just have to run.”

But this is childish bluster. Tihun's short legs can't carry her away fast enough from the death of her childhood. Her wedding is five days away. And she is 7 years old...

[Blood of Tyrants]

It is OBVIOUS that abortions on demand would be the solution to all their problems. </sarcasm>

[Popman]

I recently meet an older, I mean probably in his late 70's middle eastern man and his grand daughter. I politely told him during our introduction that his grand daughter was quite beautiful.

I was politely informed she was his wife.

She was at the most, 20 years old.

Strangely, she seemed happy.

[JarheadFromFlorida]

C'mon guilty white liberals, tell how how our American culture is really not any better than Ethiopian culture. I can't wait for your responses (afterall, we shouldn't be judemental)!

[tuffydoodle]

ping

Ya'll have got to read through this thread.