Delaying Marriage Gets Passing Grades
Here is an uplifting, though surprising, account of reform and progress of the condition of women in one Muslim country, Egypt.
European Muslims are shocked and angry about recent news stories and editorials that characterize the Prophet Mohammad as a pedophile stating that in his day, the eight century, marriage between men that are sometimes men old enough to be the brides' grandfathers, was considered normal, and thus can not be technically labeled as pedophilia. How, then, can be characterize the contemporary practice of marrying child-brides to older men that is occurring at this moment in time, not only in Hindu India, famous for such a practice, but in the modern Middle East, East Asia, North Africa, and anywhere Muslims presently reside, even in Europe and the U.K. where Muslims are agitating to silence those critics that find the practice abhorrent.
Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent Christine Spolar tells us about the plight of young girls caught in this system, and the progress that only some of them are making to break away from this ancient tradition. In an encouraging “web of Egyptian programs” that may become a model for the rest of Egypt and, perhaps the rest of the Middle East, young girls are becoming literate and are being taught basic skills that could help them become less dependent upon marriage and more able to maintain themselves.
For the first time, girls are being given such basic information as how their bodies function and where babies come from. Previously they found out this information on the wedding night, and repeatedly bearing children that became burden “only to be married off as quickly as possible.” Most child brides come from villages where 70 percent of the girls marry before 18, some are consummating marriage as young as 13 or 14. Surprisingly, not all young brides in the Middle East are from Muslim families; some are Coptic Christians for whom “early marriage is a tradition.”
The medical community has long known of the risks to children bearing children: high mother and infant mortality, weak and sick babies, and the risk of sexually transmitted diseases transferred by older, more experienced husbands that regularly infect their young wives with all manner of SDS as well as AIDS.
The program had to overcome parental fear and suspicion. Accommodations have been made to make discussion groups, sports participation, and the like, acceptable to parents, imams, and priests, but the girls are getting more information and opportunities are being available that would have seemed impossible.
Persuasion by teachers and others came about as parents were told that “nothing in the Koran prohibits women from school, and Islam celebrates educated women.” Girls were encouraged to come home and teach other siblings what they had learned that day, a benefit for the family and the whole community.
The girls became empowered as they learned, even to the point that they began to ask questions about why they had been circumcised as small children. Discussion with their mothers showed that adult females had received incorrect information about menstruation and other intimate topics. The information had been incorrectly passed down for generations.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the British government, and other non-governmental agencies initially funded the program, Ishraq. The U.S. State Department “is weighing whether educating girls into womanhood translates into its vision of reform in the Middle East. Ishraq is being considered for hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Middle East Partnership Initiative, a broad aid program aimed at spreading and supporting democracy.”
The program is making changes. Girls are determined to save younger siblings from illiteracy and the pain of circumcision, and they are feeling empowered to delay marriage and to have a say in their future as they have learned the skills of persuasion. Some are even contributing economically to lift their families out of poverty.
The situation for European Muslims is different. Europeans are becoming aware of child brides as they are appearing on European soil because families seek brides from their countries of origin even though the practice is illegal in all Western countries. Feeling pressured by non-Muslims to conform to community and national standards that are odds with Muslim practices, as they know them, Muslim communities have created a code of silence to protect families that engage in this practice from detection. Girls and women are returning to school and work in Afghanistan and Iraq. Ironically there are many young brides in Europe, and sometimes America, that will never be educated and are abused and trapped into marriages from countries such as Egypt where reform is taking place.
Read the original.
European Muslims are shocked and angry about recent news stories and editorials that characterize the Prophet Mohammad as a pedophile stating that in his day, the eight century, marriage between men that are sometimes men old enough to be the brides' grandfathers, was considered normal, and thus can not be technically labeled as pedophilia. How, then, can be characterize the contemporary practice of marrying child-brides to older men that is occurring at this moment in time, not only in Hindu India, famous for such a practice, but in the modern Middle East, East Asia, North Africa, and anywhere Muslims presently reside, even in Europe and the U.K. where Muslims are agitating to silence those critics that find the practice abhorrent.
Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent Christine Spolar tells us about the plight of young girls caught in this system, and the progress that only some of them are making to break away from this ancient tradition. In an encouraging “web of Egyptian programs” that may become a model for the rest of Egypt and, perhaps the rest of the Middle East, young girls are becoming literate and are being taught basic skills that could help them become less dependent upon marriage and more able to maintain themselves.
For the first time, girls are being given such basic information as how their bodies function and where babies come from. Previously they found out this information on the wedding night, and repeatedly bearing children that became burden “only to be married off as quickly as possible.” Most child brides come from villages where 70 percent of the girls marry before 18, some are consummating marriage as young as 13 or 14. Surprisingly, not all young brides in the Middle East are from Muslim families; some are Coptic Christians for whom “early marriage is a tradition.”
The medical community has long known of the risks to children bearing children: high mother and infant mortality, weak and sick babies, and the risk of sexually transmitted diseases transferred by older, more experienced husbands that regularly infect their young wives with all manner of SDS as well as AIDS.
The program had to overcome parental fear and suspicion. Accommodations have been made to make discussion groups, sports participation, and the like, acceptable to parents, imams, and priests, but the girls are getting more information and opportunities are being available that would have seemed impossible.
Persuasion by teachers and others came about as parents were told that “nothing in the Koran prohibits women from school, and Islam celebrates educated women.” Girls were encouraged to come home and teach other siblings what they had learned that day, a benefit for the family and the whole community.
The girls became empowered as they learned, even to the point that they began to ask questions about why they had been circumcised as small children. Discussion with their mothers showed that adult females had received incorrect information about menstruation and other intimate topics. The information had been incorrectly passed down for generations.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the British government, and other non-governmental agencies initially funded the program, Ishraq. The U.S. State Department “is weighing whether educating girls into womanhood translates into its vision of reform in the Middle East. Ishraq is being considered for hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Middle East Partnership Initiative, a broad aid program aimed at spreading and supporting democracy.”
The program is making changes. Girls are determined to save younger siblings from illiteracy and the pain of circumcision, and they are feeling empowered to delay marriage and to have a say in their future as they have learned the skills of persuasion. Some are even contributing economically to lift their families out of poverty.
The situation for European Muslims is different. Europeans are becoming aware of child brides as they are appearing on European soil because families seek brides from their countries of origin even though the practice is illegal in all Western countries. Feeling pressured by non-Muslims to conform to community and national standards that are odds with Muslim practices, as they know them, Muslim communities have created a code of silence to protect families that engage in this practice from detection. Girls and women are returning to school and work in Afghanistan and Iraq. Ironically there are many young brides in Europe, and sometimes America, that will never be educated and are abused and trapped into marriages from countries such as Egypt where reform is taking place.
Read the original.
posted by Eleanor © @ 12/13/2004 11:19:00 AM
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