Yemeni child bride dies of internal bleeding


Recommended Posts

Yemeni child bride dies of internal bleeding

By Mohammed Jamjoom, CNN

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

* The 12-year-old was married off to a man at least twice her age, said Sigrid Kaag of UNICEF

* UNICEF: The child died of internal bleeding caused by intercourse three days after her marriage

* The minimum age to tie the knot is still under debate in Yemen

* Last year a 12-year-old Yemeni forced into marriage died during childbirth. Her baby also died

(CNN) -- A 12-year-old Yemeni bride died of internal bleeding following intercourse three days after she was married off to an older man, the United Nations Children's Fund said.

The girl was married to a man at least twice her age, said Sigrid Kaag, UNICEF regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Her death is "a painful reminder of the risks girls face when they are married too soon," Kaag said.

No further information was immediately available.

The death is the latest in a series of child marriage cases in Yemen, where the minimum age to tie the knot is still under debate.

In September, a 12-year-old Yemeni girl forced into marriage died during childbirth. Her baby also died, according to the Seyaj Organization for the Protection of Children.

Fawziya Ammodi was in labor for three days before she died of severe bleeding, said Ahmed al-Qureshi, president of the organization.

"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," al-Qureshi said.

Child brides are common in Yemen, where the United Nations estimates that one in three girls are married before the age of 18. Most are married off to older men with more than one wife, according to a study by Sanaa University.

For the girl's parents, marriage means the daughters are no longer a financial or moral burden. Most times, parents get a promise from the husband to wait until the girl is older to consummate the marriage.

"Early marriage places girls at increased risk of dropping out of school, being exposed to violence, abuse and exploitation, and even losing their lives from pregnancy, childbirth and other complications," UNICEF said.

The issue of Yemeni child brides made headlines in 2008 when 10-year-old Nujood Ali was pulled out of school and married. Her husband beat and raped her within weeks of the ceremony.

To escape, Nujood hailed a taxi -- the first time in her life -- to get 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.

Sad and equally sickening. Read the story about her marriage weeks ago and remember not giving a damn thinking to myself these people are beyond reason. It figures that someone in that country had to have an IQ north of 80 no matter what excuse or what their "prophet" did or decreed in the name of the invisible cloud being in the 7th century. This is just barbaric.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh em GEE! 12 is too young to have sex / push a kid out? No way!?!? That info just reached my part of the world too!! ;)

I really don't understand other cultures customs like this, nor do I respect these types of customs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ive read so many of these news reports that im desensitized to them. I know its wrong and all, but now because I hear of it every few days, it doesn't bother me anymore. To me its just another senseless act by a barbaric and uncivilized people.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Im guessing it was ok on the mans part... His religion calls for this to happen i am guessing...

Edit:

I was reffering to the marriage, sex and baby part, not the whole death thing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ive read so many of these news reports that im desensitized to them. I know its wrong and all, but now because I hear of it every few days, it doesn't bother me anymore. To me its just another senseless act by a barbaric and uncivilized people.

Sadly, I'm starting to feel the same way... :cry:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Im guessing it was ok on the mans part... His religion calls for this to happen i am guessing...

Edit:

I was reffering to the marriage, sex and baby part, not the whole death thing.

It doesn't make it ok.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh em GEE! 12 is too young to have sex / push a kid out? No way!?!? That info just reached my part of the world too!! ;)

I really don't understand other cultures customs like this, nor do I respect these types of customs.

It's sad that they treat children that way.

A little devil's advocate here, its only been in the last 100 yrs or so that girls of that age stopped marrying. Up till then, 12 to early teens was about the age at which they were married off and started raising families. This was true for pretty much the whole planet. Its not really that that part of the world is backwards but more like they havent modernized with the rest of the world in that regard.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A little devil's advocate here, its only been in the last 100 yrs or so that girls of that age stopped marrying. Up till then, 12 to early teens was about the age at which they were married off and started raising families. This was true for pretty much the whole planet. Its not really that that part of the world is backwards but more like they havent modernized with the rest of the world in that regard.

true true little over 100 years ago in most if not all countries there was a if she bleeds she breeds policy it's most or less to do with the fact we're living longer thus life stages are becoming longer hell in the late 1940's to early 50's there was no such thing as the teenager.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To me its just another senseless act by a barbaric and uncivilized people

So he's referring to Middle-easterners as a whole as barbaric and uncivilized people? Wow. Thanks for clarifying that :)

EDIT: Typo's etc

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And Anarkii, don't think i've forgotten about you now. Come out south-west to Macquarie Fields and get yourself a 12 year old hooker.

LOL thanks for the offer, but only if your shouting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To me its just another senseless act by a barbaric and uncivilized people

So he's referring to Middle-easterners as a whole as barbaric and uncivilized people? Wow. That's for clarifying that :)

You do know not everyone in the middle east are muslim right? You are making accusations based on words that have nothing to do with religion. You can be "barbaric and uncivilized" in any part of the world with or without any bases for religion. You are coming on extremely ignorant, trying to point out someone else's flaws while ignoring you very own. Grow the F up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes take a chill pill. I wasn't referring to any one society. I was simply stating, all the child sex I see on tv news, read in newspapers, and the like, even though its wrong; it simply doesn't effect me the same way it used to.

Hearing about it every day has simply desensitized me to it. Its just another bad thing done by criminals like robbery and murder, which you also hear about every day.

So Steve, dont get your knickers in a knot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Where did Anarkii say Muslim? :rolleyes:

Not really defending Steven Johns, but according to Wikipedia, less than 1% of the people in Yemen are non-Muslims. Yemen also has one of the highest birth rates in the world, with the average woman having 6 children (also according to Wikipedia).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A little devil's advocate here, its only been in the last 100 yrs or so that girls of that age stopped marrying. Up till then, 12 to early teens was about the age at which they were married off and started raising families. This was true for pretty much the whole planet. Its not really that that part of the world is backwards but more like they havent modernized with the rest of the world in that regard.

My great-great grandmother got married when she was 13, right here in the US. Like you said, it was a little different back then. It's seem horrible to us now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well at least we can say we know right from wrong from experience knowledge and development. The middle east in lesser developed/established countries like Yemen suffers badly from primitive thought and development in relation to social economics and affairs of their country unrelated to their religion or culture, it's very similar to situations in Afghanistan. There's reasons for allowing such circumstances like marriage/age of consent etc around 12 but they're not very well justified but just as in the developed world nothing changes till society does which in a non-secular Islamic country it takes an extremely long time to evolve and develop even a little in the social realm.

In simple form, only people who can see and judge it as being wrong is those who know differently.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As if this story couldn't get any worse....

April 10, 2010

Dead Yemeni Child Bride Tied Up, Raped, Says Mom

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 9:39 a.m. ET

SHUEBA, Yemen (AP) -- A 13-year-old Yemeni child bride who bled to death shortly after marriage was tied down and forced to have sex by her husband, according to interviews with the child's mother, police and medical reports.

The girl's mother, Nijma Ahmed, 50, told the Associated Press that before her daughter lost consciousness, she said that her husband had tied her up and forced himself on her. ''She looked like she was butchered,'' she said about her daughter's injuries.

Elham Assi, 13, bled to death hours after she spoke to her mother and just days after she was married to a 23-year-old man. She died on April 2 in the deeply poor Yemeni village of Shueba, some 200 kilometers northwest of the capital. Her husband, Abed al-Hikmi, is in police custody.

The practice of marrying young girls is widespread in Yemen where a quarter of all females marry before the age of 15, according to a 2009 report by the country's Ministry of Social Affairs. Traditional families prefer young brides because they are seen as more obedient and are expected to have more children.

Legislation to ban child brides has been stalled by opposition from religious leaders. There has been no government comment over the case.

The girl -- one of eight siblings -- was pushed into marriage after an agreement between her brother and her future-husband to marry each other's sisters to avoid having to pay expensive bride-prices -- a common arrangement in Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East.

According to police notes from the interrogation of the husband, he was upset because he could not consummate their relationship and felt under pressure to prove his manhood.

Assi's mother said she also tried to persuade her daughter to have sex with her husband so as not to shame the family.

Al-Hikmi took his young bride to a nearby medical clinic, asking a doctor there to administer her tranquilizers so she would not resist his advances. The clinic said it refused.

Al-Hikmi then obtained performance enhancing pills, according to the police interrogation, and that night completed the act while she screamed.

The next day, he returned to the same medical clinic carrying Assi because she could not walk.

''I told him not to go near her for at least ten days,'' said Dr. Fathiya Haidar. She said Assi's vaginal canal was ripped.

A forensic report obtained by the AP showed that Assi's injuries were much more extensive, including extensive tearing around the vagina and rectum, suggesting that there might have been additional intercourse after the clinic visit.

Her mother said she visited Assi later that day, where she found her daughter fading in and out of consciousness.

''She whispered in my ear that he had tied her up and had sex with her violently,'' she said. ''I said to her husband, what have you done, you criminal?''

She said al-Hikmi told her that the young bride was just possessed by spirits and said he would take her to a folk healer to cast them out. Hours later, Assi was dead.

''She asked me to stay beside her,'' her mother said.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A forensic report obtained by the AP showed that Assi's injuries were much more extensive, including extensive tearing around the vagina and rectum, suggesting that there might have been additional intercourse after the clinic visit.

Her mother said she visited Assi later that day, where she found her daughter fading in and out of consciousness.

''She whispered in my ear that he had tied her up and had sex with her violently,'' she said. ''I said to her husband, what have you done, you criminal?''

She said al-Hikmi told her that the young bride was just possessed by spirits and said he would take her to a folk healer to cast them out. Hours later, Assi was dead.

Rape. Child rape. 12 years old. End of story.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.