Another victim of misogynistic faith

September 9, 2013 • 1:30 pm

UPDATE:  As a commenter below notes: journalists and officials in Yemen deny the truth of this story, but the original reporter stands by the facts.

_____________

A headline from HuffPo:

Screen shot 2013-09-09 at 3.24.19 PMAnd the facts:

An eight-year-old Yemeni girl has died of internal sexual injuries after spending her wedding night with a husband five times her age.

The girl, identified as Rawan, is believed to have suffered tearing of her genitals and a uterine rupture, Kuwaiti daily newspaper Al Watan reports.

. . . Al Bawaba reports over a quarter of young girls in Yemen are married before the age of 15.

It points the country passed a law in February 2009 setting the minimum age of marriage at 17, but that it was repealed after conservative lawmakers declared it “un-Islamic”.

Only religion can sanction this kind of monstrous behavior. And no, it can’t be pinned on Western occupation.

87 thoughts on “Another victim of misogynistic faith”

      1. Yeah, really. It may be a terrible tragedy, but clearly no one is at fault here. Allah wants eight year old girls to be married, and Allah can’t be wrong. It’s their culture in that region. You’re a racist if you call another culture monstrous, sick, and inhuman, just because you disagree with it. You must be a war-loving neo-conserv

        1. Sorry, iPad fail. I won’t bother to finish. More sarcasm, in case anyone couldn’t tell.

          2. One of the more humane tactics used by the Omnipotent Allah to combat His critics.

            Now if only He would stop inspiring His submissives to protect His honor for Him.

    1. Insane too, since that is only a myth. It is not an actual example of historical events that anyone could (or should) follow.

      1. And still a law trying to prevent this was rejected on the grounds that it was un-islamic.

        I don’t get it.

          1. From the first article: “According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), between 2011 and 2020, more than 140 million girls will become child brides. Furthermore, of the 140 million girls who will marry before the age of 18, 50 million will be under the age of 15.”

            I need a nightcap, this is bumming me out.

      2. So, you’re saying that Mohammed is a myth?

        “Traditional sources state that Aisha was married to Muhammad at the age of six, but she stayed in her parents’ home until the age of nine, when the marriage was consummated with Muhammad, then 53…”

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aisha

        “The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with ‘Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death).”
        Sahih Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 62, Number 88; Volume 7, Book 62, Number 64

        http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Aisha%27s_Age_of_Consummation_%28Short_Version%29

        “As for the prophet, peace and prayer of Allah be upon him, thighing his fiancée Aisha. She was six years of age and he could not have intercourse with her due to her small age. That is why [the prophet] peace and prayer of Allah be upon him placed his [male] member between her thighs and massaged it softly, as the apostle of Allah had control of his [male] member not like other believers.”

        http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Qur%27an,_Hadith_and_Scholars:Aisha#.22Thighing.22_Aisha

        Sorry, but your mindless Islamopandering is showing.

  5. Uggh. Time for a strong drink. What the FUCK is sexual about a tiny 8 yo girl??? That poor child – and for it to be condoned??? She had no one to help her. Of course the comments are rife with “OUR religion (Baptists, Catholics, etc) would NEVER condone such a thing. Those dirty Muslims!” Only…they have and they did and they WOULD if not for the imperative to fit into a modern world unlike much of the middle east. At 8 years old I still believed in magic and unicorns and played with Barbies in tree houses. I see now what a fucking luxury that was.

    1. People are attracted to all sorts of things, including lots that not only isn’t even not human but isn’t even animate. When there’re people attracted to pool pumps and belt sanders, I don’t find it all surprising that there’re others attracted to actual humans of whatever shape or size or age.

      What I don’t get is how somebody with such an attraction could be so utterly without empathy as to act on it — and then, to keep on acting on it. To the point of cold-blooded murder.

      It’s clear that the murderer / rapist didn’t even think of his victim as human. Hell, he probably thought of her as disposable property, not much different from a kleenex or a dirty sock.

      Probably still thinks of her that way, too.

      b&

          3. Yeah. In what way could any rational person, let alone a decent one, that doesn’t have monstrously selfish ulterior motives consider a marriage between an 8 year old child and a 40 year old man okay.

            Though it is much rarer this kind of thing has happened, is probably happening right now, in the US as well. (child brides that is, not necessarily child brides raped to death, don’t know about that)

      2. Yeah, I would hope there is a big difference in the psyche of someone attracted to a pool pump and someone who thinks an 8 yo is fuckable. The torture she endured and succumbed to is absolutely inhuman. Raping a child, having a victim is all the difference here. You are right, she was disposable property. Now he just gets to wait until another set of parents willingly hands over their daughter to a child rapist/murderer. Absolutely fucking horrifying and stomach turning.

    2. Sometimes I can put stuff like this out of my mind, because sometimes you have to, in order to get through a day.

      Other times I see one story like this and can’t help but think of the millions of children (or anyone) who live joyless, tortured lives, sometimes only until their lives are cut short in such brutal ways. There must be so many. How lucky am I and my daughter, who will be 8 in less than 4 years, not to live in such a culture?

      1. Indeed, I think of myself as so lucky to be born in the West and have the opportunities I have. I felt it most when I studied Ancient Greek. I got to go to class and study an ancient language because I wanted to – what a luxury! Other people were just trying to survive.

  6. Jerry, you — and PuffHo — both missed the most horrific part about the crime.

    The murderer / rapist has yet to be arrested or charged….

    b&

    1. I have no idea whether anybody now or ever will even consider criminal charges for this homicide, but I would not at all be surprised if negotiations for return of all or some portion of the dowry are not presently in progress.

    2. No, the most horrific part is unequivocally what the little girl endured. The lack of consequences is just a pustulent sauce to that greater evil.

  7. Awful. I become more disappointed with liberal christians in this (US) country when I hear about this. They have no idea of the coherence between their belief systems and the one’s that permit such atrocities.

    Religious people of the world: Stop believing in epistemologically nonsense and the sooner such acts will stop being justified by misogynistic faith.

      1. I’m sorry. I was just looking for a more thorough story. I didn’t realize the article was followed by that, or I would have found a different source to link.

        1. Oh, I’m back already, no problem. I know how links may take you where you don’t expect to be.

      2. re the Oakland murder:
        “Park said that Phan was teasing Yim about his belief in God, asking Yim where God was every time Yim lost the video game. According to Park, things escalated when Yim became enraged and grabbed his gun after Phan asked Yim where God was when Yim’s father died of a stroke several years earlier.”

        I think I have a tiny bit of sympathy for the believer in this particular instance. This truly was a case of a smug, arrogant atheist.
        (BTW, I am an atheist.)

        2. Sympathy? I’d have sympathy for him if he ran out of the room crying. He picked up a gun and killed the guy for teasing him. No sympathy.

          1. “…ran out of the room crying.”

            Real Men don’t do that. Stand your ground, I always say.

            (seriously, I think the culture, not just religion, has to take some of the blame here)

  9. Shit like this is why it baffles me when religious folks claim that atheism is a morally bankrupt worldview. An atheist would have no excuse for behavior like this, but this monster has the supposed word of God and the example of his prophet sanctioning his evil deed. His society condones his crime, and I’m sure faitheists are falling all over themselves to be the first to declare that this does not represent the “true” faith. Disgusting.

    2. Some people are already blaming culture and claim that religion has nothing to do with it.
      They blame the misogynistic past and that that was the norm at the time.

      2. Yeah, the misogyny is in the past, that’s it! Sheesh! If religious leaders decried this, it would stop. Religion is more influential than culture!

        1. Religion is culture. A very malignant component of culture, just as organized crime is part of culture.

    3. > baffles me when religious folks claim that atheism is a morally bankrupt worldview

      And it baffles me when anybody is taking religious stateents at face value and requiring some logical consistency from religious people.

      They are simply doing whatever their urges tell them to do and making up stories to avoid consequences.

      Wanna rape a girl? “God allows it!”. Wanna kill somebody? “God wills it!” Wanna take somebody’s stuff? “God needs more money!”. Etc. It is an utterly nonsensical waste of time to discuss any of these phony pretexts at face value.

      1. If faith were a valid means of gaining knowledge, all of these pretexts would be true. Since the claims of faith contradict each other, it’s an easy reductio ad absurdum to conclude that faith is not a valid means of gaining knowing.

    4. Atheism, per se, has nothing to say about this disgusting behavior. Whether an explicit philosophy or something cobbled together, it’s our positive views that inform our estimate of this, as, I believe, of religion also. Atheism, itself, doesn’t give one immunity from madness and brutality.

      1. But religion is used to justify selfish barbarity. That is one of its major functions. Get religion out of the picture and it becomes much easier to indict the barbarians.

  12. That is it! I doubt there will be good grounds making me stop criticizing religion now.

  13. …and, of course out trots the defense, “Its not the religion, its the that caused this tragedy.” Its not the religion, its underlying mental illness. Its not the religion, its because they were desperately poor. Its not the religion its because of dire political tensions. Its not religion its because they were abused as children themselves….

    I realize its only a small percentage of the religiously devout who ever commit such extremes as this, but how can anyone pretend the rare — but inevitable — horror that routinely comes out of the faith-based-communities doesn’t in anyway ever make the defenders of these insitutions question their overall value to humanity? Do they ever wonder if the price for supporting an institution — no matter how good it might seem for MOST of the people — is simply NOT worth the abominable price some must pay so that the majority may feel a bit more conforted?

    I no longer care if religion might help provide some people comfort at times when such things are most needed. If the price we have to pay for their solace is to endure these rare — but seemingly inevitable — absolutely intolerable behaviors that the faith=based practices often enable, if not outrightly promote, the price is just way too high to pay.

    1. Sadly, this is not a “rare” event. Rawan is not the first girl tortured and/ or murdered by her “husband”:

      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1264729/Child-bride-13-dies-internal-injuries-days-arranged-marriage-Yemen.html

      http://abcnews.go.com/Health/International/yemeni-bride-11-hospitalized-genital-injuries/story?id=10362500

      According to this article “an average of eight women die each day in Yemen due to child marriage, many of them in childbirth (…)”.

      Eight little girls each DAY. In Yemen. Add all the girls dying in Afghanistan, Pakistan…

      Dying while trying to give birth when you are yourself still a child is not much better than dying during the ordeal that makes you pregnant.

  16. You are wrong. Islam does not support underage marriage. Its their barbaric culture mixed with Religion. Underage marriage happens all over the world,even in non Muslim countries.
    Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone provided by Airtel Nigeria.

        1. Yes, especially when, if they don’t run the government outright, they influence it to the point of dominating it! Islam is to blame for this – there can’t be that many “rogue Muslims.”

    3. Predictable and utterly ridiculous. It is you who are wrong. Islam is an integral part of their culture. The culture and the religion are not two seperate things. Their culture is derived from and informed by their religion and their religion, and their interpretations of it, are derived from and informed by their culture.

      To point out that people use their religion to justify their urges may be accurate but it is trivial and not relevant. If their religion wasn’t amenable to justifying their behavior then they wouldn’t be able to use it that way with the support, tacit or otherwise, of a significant percentage of their society, and laws that criminalize such behavior wouldn’t be shot down because they are “un-islamic.”

    4. Are you utterly mad? The article says clearly:

      “It points the country passed a law in February 2009 setting the minimum age of marriage at 17, but that it was repealed after conservative lawmakers declared it “un-Islamic”.”

      Yes, their culture is barbaric, but that is precisely because it is mixed with religion. We know that functional (more safe, e.g. less misogynistic) societies has less religiosity.

      You can’t disentangle religion from culture because it _is_ culture. Barbaric culture.

    6. Nonsense.

      “Traditional sources state that Aisha was married to Muhammad at the age of six, but she stayed in her parents’ home until the age of nine, when the marriage was consummated with Muhammad, then 53…”

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aisha

      “The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with ‘Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death).”
      Sahih Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 62, Number 88; Volume 7, Book 62, Number 64

      http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Aisha%27s_Age_of_Consummation_%28Short_Version%29

      “As for the prophet, peace and prayer of Allah be upon him, thighing his fiancée Aisha. She was six years of age and he could not have intercourse with her due to her small age. That is why [the prophet] peace and prayer of Allah be upon him placed his [male] member between her thighs and massaged it softly, as the apostle of Allah had control of his [male] member not like other believers.”

      http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Qur%27an,_Hadith_and_Scholars:Aisha#.22Thighing.22_Aisha

  17. This is utterly horrible, deplorable, outrageous and criminal. Where is that bastard?!
    This practice of child brides must be outlawed. What’s also horrendous is the aftermath of injuries, when the injured child must be stitched up to be handed back to her ‘husband’, IF she’s ‘lucky’ to survive. Sometimes that can’t/isn’t done, and she’s shunned because of the ensuing infection, etc.

  20. It is indeed awful – one must keep in mind that it is only fairly recently in the West that child marriages were abandoned. Jewish law, still applicable and applied, allows marriage to 13 year-old girls. My husband’s grandmother was married at the age of nine, in the USA and had her children in her early teens. In Europe, child marriages were practiced until the beginning of the 20th century.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_marriage#History

    http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/marriage.html (spool to the bottom of the page).

  21. ‘…but that it was repealed after conservative lawmakers declared it “un-Islamic”.’

    They seem confused. “Un-Islamic” legislation is a good thing.

    1. This is what is so shocking – can you imagine the screaming and this guy still continued? Ugh it’s just so horrible to think of!

    1. Of course they will deny it, it’s too easy when there is so little protecting women/girls. It’s telling when truth is discerned through word of mouth rather then by evidence.
      How many crimes, including rape, are not reported to protect communal honor? The whole idea is nauseating.

      Fundamentally, this is rooted in the general lack of equal gender rights and the oppression of consensual sex. Abnormally horny men are handed a catalog of “eligible” females who are more often communally chosen and farmed off as chattel for marriage based on their family status and connections, despite any concern for the well being and consent of the girl.
      Sex in Islam (and other religions too) is so tightly controlled through the subjugation in women,
      not for the purpose of protecting women but rather granting the sole possession of a women to a man often above the law, or worse, enshrined in law. (And protected by the community.)
      The hijab/niqab, name calling (“whore”), importance of virginity, polygamy, purity, chastity and even marriage are vices of a system that rationalize (through religion) this kind of behavior as virtue under the guise of protecting women. It’s revolting.
      The perpetrator, the father and a society that allows such behavior all disgust me in equal measure.

      1. Primate behavior features kin, clan, and tribal dominance privileges for powerful males. Who holds this power is determined in part or whole by physical strength. The capacity of mind that emerged during human evolution enables our species to distinguish that there is a difference between right behavior and behavior that exists when might makes right.

        Civilization is defined in no small part by societal structures conceived and erected to replace might with objectively identified/codified right. Level, or degree, of civilization is also quantifiable by the tendency of such societies to implement, maintain, and enforce such structures.

        This repugnant crime and its aftermath is illustrative of the danger of unquestioning faith in traditional authority structure, and also to the degree members of society place faith in, and obedience to, both authority decree & the agents who possess authority positions.

        Distribution of power/rights between genders provides one (of a number) of excellent benchmarks with which to compare any societies’ present level of civilization with primate culture from which it descends. This crime is about exploitation of the weak by someone because they are physically strong enough to overpower their target. It is tolerated, even legitimated, within the prevailing culture, including tacit legal sanctions via the aforementioned Sharia privilege exemptions.

        Misogyny and gender bias in other countries/cultures, including the USA/Christendom, is with the exception of legal marriage age requirements not so very dissimilar — if less openly displayed — to Islam. The 1st Amendment ensures there are some negative consequences to blatant expression of gender hostility — meaning American victims are legally protected if they choose to respond to their attackers — which, in time, may be part of the process of educating humans to be, well, more human. Instead of more primative.

        On the other hand, a decal placed on a pickup tailgate of a bound & helpless female has no negative connotations in the minds of those who produce and display it. It also results in positive sales results for the business enterprise, even while garnering significant national outrage and disgust. Sure, they didn’t rape an 8 yr old girl to death, but how different, really, is the mindset?

  26. I spent 2 weeks in Yemen 13 years go, operating on children with hydrocephalus and neural tube deficits. A colleague was there, repairing urethral-rectal fistulas caused by vaginal rupture into bladder or rectum during intercourse. The women were all very young. Once the fistula is established, the husbands abandon them – after all, they are unclean! They are ostracized, virtually outcast. Most Yemeni women are small, and when married young, usually less than 100 lbs, and have narrow, small pelvises. Ah yes! One must not. Criticize their customs and religion, which in Yemen are one and the same. Bullshit!

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