When will Muslims protest this????
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| Mon, 09-14-2009 - 2:06pm |
((Yemeni girl, 12, dies in painful childbirth
AMMAN, Jordan (CNN) -- A 12-year-old Yemeni girl, who was forced into marriage, died during a painful childbirth that also killed her baby, a children's rights group said Monday.
Fawziya Ammodi struggled for three days in labor, before dying of severe bleeding at a hospital on Friday, said the Seyaj Organization for the Protection of Children.
"Although the cause of her death was lack of medical care, the real case was the lack of education in Yemen and the fact that child marriages keep happening," said Seyaj President Ahmed al-Qureshi.
Born into an impoverished family in Hodeidah, Fawziya was forced to drop out of school and married off to a 24-year-old man last year, al-Qureshi said.
Child brides are commonplace in Yemen, especially in the Red Sea Coast where tribal customs hold sway. Hodeidah is the fourth largest city in Yemen and an important port.
More than half of all young Yemeni girls are married off before the age of 18 -- many times to older men, some with more than one wife, a study by Sanaa University found.
While it was not immediately known why Fawziya's parents married her off, the reasons vary. Sometimes, financially-strapped parents offer up their daughters for hefty dowries.
Marriage means the girls are no longer a financial or moral burden to their parents. And often, parents will extract a promise from the husband to wait until the girl is older to consummate the marriage.
The issue of Yemeni child brides came to the forefront in 2008 with 10-year-old Nujood Ali.
She was pulled out of school and married to a man who beat and raped her within weeks of the ceremony.
To escape, Nujood hailed a taxi -- the first time in her life -- to get across town to the central courthouse where she sat on a bench and demanded to see a judge.
After a well-publicized trial, she was granted a divorce.
The Yemeni parliament tried in February to pass a law, setting the minimum marriage age at 17. But the measure has not reached the president because many parliamentarians argued it violates sharia, or Islamic law, which does not stipulate a minimum age))
Muslims around the world will gather to protest a stupid Danish cartoon, but will do nothing to stop atrocities like this. Why do Muslims around the world allow these gross violations of human rights? Why does America and other civilized countries allow this to continue?

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"Countries that are ruled by Islamic Law are usually very troubled countries. There is little or no peace and tolerance in these countries. Most still live in the 6th century. Most don't allow women to be educated. "
Countries with the largest Muslim population, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan have had female heads of state, unlike the US. I do agree that women in many countries need equality and to be treated better. I don't agree that it's only the Muslims. As a Christian, is it my duty to protest the Vatican and its treatment of inequality of women or to protest the higher level embrace of pedophiles? I don't speak up against every wrong a group I'm part of (from culture to religion to country) has done. Guilty--do you?
(( I think it is safe to say that none of us like what is happening to women and children in other countries, but really, what do you want us to DO about it?))
First, I am trying to bring this to everyone's attention. It appears by the responses that nobody is comfortable discussing this issue so they just say..."what do you want us to do?" or "it's none of our business" or "we should clean up our own backyard", etc, etc, etc.
I am doing something about it by bringing it to people's attention. I am trying to get people to discuss it. We need to write our President, Senators, and Representatives and tell them that we don't want any more of our tax dollars going for aid in these countries UNLESS their governments start to do something about the gross human rights violations going on. We need to tell our government that it is NOT okay to turn a blind eye.
The American media prevented a Saudi girl from getting 400 lashes because she was a rape victim. By OUR media bringing these atrocities and injustices into light makes change. We can 'shame' these countries to change their ways.
Perhaps the Muslim scholars here in America can help these countries under Islamic law understand the true meaning of Islam. Perhaps they can help change the barbaric attitudes of these countries.
But, instead, they do nothing. Just like many of us....we do nothing. How sad!
"When someone tries to shed light on the problem, like me, I am shut down. I am told I have no right to even question the atrocities that occur and it is none of my business."
This is a debate board and people express differing opinions. It doesn't mean that they're trying to shut you down. You have the right to express what you want as much as you want. If this is an issue that is important to you (and I do think it is a good one that should be addressed), there are avenues to pursue. I wouldn't look to others and expect them to take up my causes. But, on a debate board, I expect people to give their feedback, whether it agrees with my views or not.
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I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think everyone was already aware of atrocities committed by Muslim extremists as well as Christian extremists.
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I'm most certainly not going to write to the President or Congressmen/woman that we need to cut aid. I don't think that cutting aid for the most vulnerable people in these countries is going to do a darn thing to change these violations, but it will certainly starve those same women and children. Nope, I won't do that.
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I don't know if it was "shame," but I certainly don't have a problem with the media shining a spotlight on these things for the whole world to see and condemn.
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How do you know that they aren't doing anything? I've read plenty by Muslim scholars who are doing just exactly that.
I'm going to have to side with you here.
I'm not understanding the argument that it's none of our business, nor that we need to clean up our own backyard first, or the question of "what do you want us to do about it?"
I was talking about it in reference to cultural context. How do you go about changing a male dominated
Thanks for your reply.
Well I tried to go back and edit it to be directed to ALL and couldn't.
My example of Christians not standing up, is an analogy. I don't quite understand the expectation that the Muslims will be any different, or take a higher moral stand, than our fellow countrymen. It is not defending two wrongs making a right. Most Muslims are probably like most Christians, if it's not in their own backyard, it's not about them. People really aren't that different, wherever you go in the world. Human nature is human nature with cultural variances.
You know darn well, if Times, or the New York Times, came out with a comic strip disaparaging Christians as a whole, our nations religious groups and leaders would raise holy heck. The very same groups that do NOTHING about child brides in Texas.
Why the expectation of Muslim protest and not the same expectation of Christian protest? Why hold them to a higher moral standard and expectation? Would it be nice if they took a higher moral/ethical ground? Yes. But....doubtful.
~We need to write our President, Senators, and Representatives and tell them that we don't want any more of our tax dollars going for aid in these countries UNLESS their governments start to do something about the gross human rights violations going on.~
Not to argue, but sincerely interested... you've mentioned Jordan, Afghanistan, and (in the post to which I'm responding) Saudi Arabia. Which other countries do you think the US should cease aiding?
I think there may be a problem with cutting aid for a variety of reasons, incl. US efforts to spread democracy in the Middle East (ie. Jordan is a constitutional monarchy with representational government), and oil imports (ex. only 3 other countries are importing more oil to the US than is Saudi Arabia).
Very often aid is tied to the interests of the countries offering it, particularly in re: to trade, stabilizing a country in order to do business with them, militarily strategic places to have "friends", etc.. That seems to be in part the case in those areas.
http://jordan.usaid.gov/aboutus_subsection.cfm
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html
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Look around you. Domestic violence is a huge problem in America. Rape is a big problem. Pedophilia is a huge problem. Yet, you claim the rest of us are insensitive because we can't overhaul another culture's abuse of women and children?
These things may be against the law here, but that doesn't stop them from happening because our own culture has such a lack of respect for itself.
You're viewing the issue as a strictly Muslim one as demonstrated by your repeated statement "why don't Muslims protest?"
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