Following an out-of-court settlement, an eight year old
Saudi girl, has received her divorce from her 50 year old husband. Earlier a court
had refused the girl's mother the right to apply for a divorce until her
daughter reached puberty. The girl's father had forced his young daughter into
marriage, for an exchange of US$13,000.
Saudi
Arabia has been receiving increasing
pressure through child marriages, as there are no age limits.
Things are even worse in
India.
Forced into marriage at approximately the age of 6 – 8 years old, the girls are
a mother by 12 and their body damaged by numerous pregnancies by twenty. It is
not uncommon for a young woman to need a hysterectomy by the age of 23.
"When I was getting married, I had no idea what was going
on", says Manemma, a child bride. "I was six years old and all I knew was
that I had to leave home. I cried and cried and said I didn't want to, but they
made me".
Girls are expected to cope with their situation and to fall
pregnant the moment they reach puberty. Nearly 300,000 girls give birth under
the age of 15, many for the second time, according to a census.
A young girl, married at the age of 10, living in the
village
of
Kottaiyur Kollai, has five
surviving children and only at the age of 20. Mallamma also 20, married at age 12
and has 6 surviving children. Malli married at the age 8 has eight surviving
children.
With their bodies underdeveloped and often malnourished,
early childbirth for these girls can often prove deadly. Some 100,000 mothers
and one million babies die in
India
every year. Doctors report there are frequent cases of rape of prepubescent
girls.
The May festival of Akshaya Tritiya, is the most auspicious
day in the year for weddings. The streets echo to the loud cacophony of steel
bands, firecrackers and women's voices singing as they prepare young girls to
meet their not-seen-before new husbands. The girls will never be given the
chance to continue their education in their in-law's homes. Marriage enters
them into a live sentence of slavery to their mother-in-law and ill-treatment
from their husbands. The girls have nothing more to look forward to than
repeated pregnancies and unremitting childcare, if they manage to live through
their first pregnancy.
Marriages have been known to take place with girls as young
as four years old. All this regardless of the fact that child marriages are
unlawful in
India
and many go unregistered. A nation where social customs have more clout than
the law. Ancient texts point to a girl who has fully arrived at puberty as
being undesirable and to be rejected as a potential wife. Some parents even
deem it a sin to lodge a girl in her parental home after she has attained
puberty.
When a young woman becomes too weak to conceive and is unable
to work in the fields, the husband discards her. Young girls continue to be
ripped out of their childhood, for a life that has no future.
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