Posted on 01/07/2007 3:38:43 PM PST by blam
Starving Afghans sell girls of eight as brides
Villagers whose crops have failed after a second devastating drought are giving their young daughters in marriage to raise money for food
Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
Sunday January 7, 2007
The Observer (UK)
Azizgul is 10 years old, from the village of Houscha in western Afghanistan. This year the wheat crop failed again following a devastating drought. Her family was hungry. So, a little before Christmas, Azizgul's mother 'sold' her to be married to a 13-year-old boy. 'I need to sell my daughters because of the drought,' said her mother Sahatgul, 30. 'We don't have enough food and the bride price will enable us to buy food. Three months ago my 15-year-old daughter married.
'We were not so desperate before. Now I have to marry them younger. And all five of them will have to get married if the drought becomes worse. The bride price is 200,000 afghanis [£2,000]. His father came to our house to arrange it. The boy pays in instalments. First he paid us 5,000 afghanis, which I used to buy food.' Azizgul is not unique. Hers is one of a number of interviews and case studies collected by the charity Christian Aid - all of them young girls sold by their families to cope with the second ruinous drought to hit Afghanistan within three years.
While the world has focused on the war against the Taliban, the suffering of the drought-stricken villagers, almost 2.5 million of them, has largely gone unnoticed. And where once droughts would afflict Afganistan once every couple of decades, this drought has come hard on the heels of the last one, from which the villagers were barely able to recover.
While prohibited by both Afghan civil and Islamic law,
(Excerpt) Read more at observer.guardian.co.uk ...
Once is a mistake.
Oh, there's no MISTAKE......it's his hobby and purpose.....
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/user-posts?id=260148
Wow!
It looks like the years of living under Sharia law have taken a toll on this former National Geographic covergirl!
Compare these photos to say Christie Brinkley's pics in the 1980s and now.
I guess that there is another big difference between Western Civilazation and the Islamic world...life expectancy!
And yet the opium crop is bumper I hear.
Yes I thought of that also?? How can there be a drought
and yet the Opium Business is Booming??
Some one is Lying.
It is a UK article so it is Probably the Lie.
easy.
Back when such arranged marriages were common in many societies.
Wonder what is worth more in that culture....an AK47 or a ten year old girl?
I'm sure the Taliban and then us trying to eradicate the primary lucrative crop of the region, opium poppy, has something to do with this problem.
You must understand that we're dealing with desperate barbarians here. Faced with a failed harvest and depleted food supplies, Najibullah cannot think of any better way for the rest of his family to survive the winter than to sell his daughter to the highest bidder. Living as paupers engaged in marginal economic activity in a Third-World country, would you see any better alternative? Many of our ancestors and their contemporaries almost certainly faced similar dilemmas in 14th-century Christian Europe.
Afghanistan desperately needs a stronger economy capable of lifting people from the throes of starvation, but it first requires Christian missionaries to civilize the country and to develop an education system sufficient to enable Afghans to carve out their niche in the global economy. Farmers would benefit from some crop insurance program that provided sustenance in the event of severe drought or irrigation to mitigate the effects of drought on crops. But such economic instruments cannot stabilize a war-devastated economy, and Afghanistan has only begun to embark upon the long road to recovery.
Let's see now, it's not poverty or the drought or Bush's fault that they sell their daughters. They just had to sell them below market price.
Wonder what mohammed (mpigsbuh) have done? Where are those muslim charity organizations?
How is it Clinton's fault? I hear he bought 4 or 5 of them personally as a "humanitarian" thing.
In practice, this is a payment to the bride's father for him turning over his daughter. And now you understand why they perform "honor killing" when a girl goes off with a guy not of her father's choosing -- likely the money was agreed upon in advance, and now daddy has to cough up a refund. For example:
Mahr is a wife's right, which becomes binding upon the husband once the marriage is contracted. It is fully payable after the consummation of marriage but if divorce occurs before the consummation of marriage then half of the Mahr is required to be paid unless the wife or her guardians waive it.The contract could be done well in advance of the actual consumation (For example, Mad Mo "married" his child bride at the age of 6, but consumated at 9)
I wonder the same thing...where are those ...charities? These are muslims in need of help, right.
It wasn't that long ago such marriages were common in Western societies. Children younger than this were routinely "married" off by royalty to cement alliances. King Henry II got in trouble for turning his son's child "bride" into his own mistress. For other examples check out Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice or Romeo and Juliet, among many others.
The modern western practice of allowing mature women to pick their own husbands is historically weird.
They also stake the mentally retarded in the back of their dwellings (if they don't kill them outright) for the day, so they don't have to be cleaned. This is beyond primitive. Pedophilia, beastiality, slavery. It's an abomination of humanity. I would hope whatever warps the nature of humanity would perish, but I am afraid humanity will pay with its demise.
No problem here, simply reflecting on the diversity of cultures in this planet. Isn't multiculturalism wonderful? When are they issuing visas to these people so they can bring these practices to America?
So if they weren't starving they'd sell them at 9?
"How much for the women? I want to buy your women."- Joliet Jake
Thank you! Glad that I'm not the only one annoyed at that link!
And you just know that right now, somewhere on the internet, some liberal is posting about how this is proof that America shouldn't be in Afghanistan.
Words fail me on the sickness of this.
I suppose you would rather see them starve.
I don't see a lot of aid coming in...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.