Ok To Marry 10 Year Old Girls – Saudi Arabia
This is just sad. I’m sorry, a ten year old girl is that – a girl. Any father knows that. She is precious and innocent, and still playing dolls and make believe. Few girls are even menstruating at 10. No girl, at 10, has the emotional and physical maturity to enter into a marriage. And this is the SENIOR Saudi Arabian cleric speaking? I’m sorry, this makes me sick to my stomach. It’s just wrong.
You don’t leave a ten year old alone – you get a babysitter. A ten year old belongs in school, a ten year old belongs with her mother.
This is from today’s Al Watan, right on the front page.
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia”s most senior cleric was quoted Wednesday as saying it is permissible for 10ـyearـold girls to marry and those who think they’re too young are doing the girls an injustice.
The mufti”s comments showed the conservative clergy’s opposition to a drive by Saudi rights groups, including government ones, to define the age of marriage and put an end to the phenomenon of child marriages.
“It is wrong to say it’s not permitted to marry off girls who are 15 and younger,” Sheik AbdulـAziz AlـSheikh, the country”s grand mufti, was quoted as saying.
“A female who is 10 or 12 is marriageable and those who think she’s too young are wrong and are being unfair to her,” he said during a Monday lecture, according to the panـArab AlـHayat newspaper.
AlـSheikh”s comments come at a time when Saudi human rights groups have been pushing the government to put an end to marriages involving the very young and to define a minimum age for marriage. In the past few months, Saudi newspapers have highlighted several cases in which young girls were married off to much older men or very young boys.
Though the mufti’s pronouncements are respected and provide guidance, the government is not legally bound by them.
On Sunday, the governmentـrun Human Rights Commission condemned marriages of minor girls, saying such marriages are an “inhumane violation” and rob children of their rights.
The commission’s statement followed a ruling by a court in Oneiza in central Saudi Arabia last month that dismissed a divorce petition by the mother of an eightـyearـold girl whose father married her off to a man in his 50s.
Newspaper reports said the court argued that the mother did not have the right to file such a case on behalf of her daughter and said that the petition should be filed by the girl when she reaches puberty.
Responding to a question about parents who force their underage daughters to marry, the mufti said: “We hear a lot about the marriage of underage girls in the media, and we should know that Islamic law has not brought injustice to women.”
The mufti said a good upbringing will make a girl capable of carrying out her duties as a wife and that those who say women should not marry before the age of 25 are following a “bad path.”
“Our mothers and before them, our grandmothers, married when they were barely 12,” said AlـSheikh, according to AlـHayat.
There are no statistics to show how many marriages involving children are performed in Saudi Arabia every year. And it’s also not clear whether these unions are on the rise or whether people are hearing about them more now because of the prevalence of media outlets and easy access to the Internet.
Activists say the girls are given away in return for hefty dowries or as a result of longـstanding custom in which a father promises his infant daughters and sons to cousins out of a belief that marriage will protect them from illicit relationships. ـAP
Last updated on Thursday 15/1/2009
I have a friend who says the mufti needs to come back in his next life as a young girl in Saudi Arabia. I think it might give his thought processes some clarity.
Freej Soeleh
“You’re going to LOVE this place!” AdventureMan crowed from two continents and an ocean away. Our Kuwaiti friends’ son had just taken him and his father to eat in this restaurant, and it was a great experience.
He was right. A couple months later, he took me there, and I loved it. It was a different experience for him, too, when he went with me, because with me, he could sit upstairs in the family section. 🙂
You would never guess a place so full of homages to Kuwaiti tradition would be next door neighbors to the Marina Mall. From some of the cabinets, you look directly over to the mall.
They make their own sweets, and very fine sweets they are. His huge pot is entirely copper, and he makes wonderful candies, which you can buy and take with you, and use for gifts – made in Kuwait!
Pardon my indelicacy, but I love thoughtful decoration. This is the ladies room, and I am crazy about their huge bowl sinks – a wave to the past with the traditional sand and stone colors and materials:
We have all the privacy in the world, although we are surrounded by families. By the way, this is not a great place for an intimate, romantic dinner. Children are everywhere, clearly welcome, and bouncing off the walls. It is noisy. (We don’t mind.) When you want a waiter, you press the call button on the wall next to the little windows, which open and close.
At night – OK, this is hokey, but the truth is, I love it – they have a ceiling full of “stars”:
One thing we really love is that you can get Kuwaiti foods here. We love trying different things. One of our favorites is the Fish at the Bottom of the Pot:
Very shortly, pre-food food arrives – the beignets are light and sweet and irresistible:
As you can see, the prices are reasonable:
We have never ordered the camel milk:
To get to the Freej Soeleh coming south on Gulf Road, turn in where you see that big old Kuwaiti Style hotel, I think it is the Al-Ghanim, and then take the first right onto what my friends call Salmiyya High Street. You take the last right going toward the Marina Mall just before the mall, which will take you right into a parking area. If you look on your right, you will see the Freej Soeleh.
If you are coming South on Gulf Road, take the exit that goes in front of Marina Mall and turn right just past the valet entrance to the Mall. You will see a parking lot – and the Freej Soeleh – on your left.
You can take the elevator up to the second floor, if you are a family. If you are bachelors, you can take the escalator up to the first floor. The food is good in either place. The family section is more colorful.
If you go early – like noon for lunch, six-thirty/seven for dinner – you will walk right in. If you go later, when the Kuwaiti families stream in, you may have to wait, but they have a great waiting area, and you can watch the caramel man make candy.
Please, my western friends, if you go, dress modestly. This is a family place; most women are in abayas. I have never seen another western family here, but then we are all in cabinets, so that’s not such a surprise. It is a gem of an adventure in Kuwait.
I apologize that there are no photos of the main courses. There is always SO MUCH food. It comes, there is a frantic trying to organize the table so it has enough room for everything, and it all smells so good! You tend to just dive in.
The one jarring element is that when you are having appetizers, the tabbouleh, the muttabel, the hummus, they bring a plastic bag of bread on a plate. . . I guess I get spoiled down at the Mubarakiyya market, where the bread is always freshly made . . . I wish they had fresh hot bread, but the food itself is GOOD.
Kuwait Moonlight Magic
I should have guessed when I saw all the fishing boats gathering last night as the sun went down. As the day went all pink and lavender, and then deeper purple, you could see their lights bobbing not too far off shore.
Minutes later I cam back and was stunned – the moon was up, full and glimmering over the Gulf. It was magical.
“AdventureMan! Come look!” I called, because it is a great sorrow in our lives that many a full moon we have been in different cities. I don’t know why it matters to us, but it does. He will call me and say “there is a full moon tonight in Djibuti and we are not together!” or I will SMS him saying “there is a full moon tonight in Seattle, where are you?” There are times he will say “At least we are both on the same continent” or “At least we are both in the same time zone!” but it is still sad that we are not together. It matters to us, so to watch this great bright silver orb rise over the waters was a moment to be treasured.
There were wisps of clouds in the sky, so the moon is not sharp edged, but a little blobby. Nevertheless, it is a full moon and we are together. A good night to celebrate.
Cat Nap
I had a lot going on today, including an event I need to prepare for tomorrow. As I was settling down to read a lot of material, I felt a little cold, and put on my heavy robe. Then the Qatteri Cat heard me and came in and snuggled up close and went to sleep. His slow, regular breathing, and his little cat-sleeping noises had its effect on me, too, and the next thing I knew, I was also sound asleep.
AdventureMan said “I hate to wake you, but I’m hungry” and I was glad he did. We went out for a quick bite which turned out to be not so quick, and I am growing increasingly uncomfortable at how unprepared I am going to be when he says “don’t you remember college? Isn’t there someplace on the internet you can go and get some ideas to put this together quickly?” and it’s like a lightbulb going on – oh yeh! There is this wonderful new way to gather information in a hurry. I can get other people’s ideas . . .
We used to use something called Cliff Notes, you could buy them in any university bookstore to fill in if you didn’t have time to read the book, or to guide you if you read it and didn’t understand it.
Now I am off to find the current day equivalent, to crib some notes off the internet since I am now WAAAYYY behind the curve.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Good morning, Kuwait!
It wasn’t supposed to be this cold this morning! I think it must have been another freezing night last night, but between extra blankets and the Qatteri Cat, we slept just fine. We were in Al Ghanim last night, and saw a big sale going on – space heaters! Everyone was out buying heat.
It is going to be another glorious day in Kuwait! Dress warmly, get out there and enjoy your Friday!
We watched Valkyrie and my husband said it stayed very close to the historical events. It wasn’t very exciting, or moving, to me. I think I might’ve changed the ending. 😉 The funniest moment in the film was where AdventureMan said “I think that coughing is coming from someone in the audience, not from the film” and from time to time, we saw a head pop up in the lower left hand corner.
Sunrise Epiphany
It is a golden, glorious sunrise this morning, a little chop on the water, not so much as to even make a whitecap, just a ruffle.
It is still COLD. The temperatures for the rest of the week show a slow, gradual warming of both the maximum and minimum temperatures. We may have just seen the worst of winter.
I have pulled out my toastiest Land’s End fleece robe, bought when I lived in a tiny German farm village, where temperatures got low and stayed low. Because my apartment there had in-the-floor heating, we were always too hot! Maybe once a year, in Kuwait, I pull it out to keep me warm. This was the morning. Although it seems like it is getting warmer, the cold seeps into my building through the concrete walls and marble floors, a little colder every day.
The Qatteri Cat has decided not to get up quite yet. “It is too cold,” he complains, as he grabs his baby and goes back to bed.
Dress warmly, and get out to enjoy another glorious day in Kuwait. 🙂
Teacher Orders Students to Strip
From Al Watan. Wonder how much longer this teacher will have a job? What was she thinking???
KUWAIT: Enraged parents of young female students at one of the intermediate schools in Hawally have filed a complaint against an Egyptian teacher, who ordered all the girls in the classroom to strip. A reliable source said: “The Egyptian teacher entered the classroom and asked the students about the source of some foul odor emanating from the classroom. The students however refused to admit or identify the girl who broke a chemical ampoule, so she allegedly ordered all the students to take off their clothes. The students in turn informed their parents about the incident, after which a group of parents filed a complaint against the teacher at the AlـNugra Police Station.”
Kuwait Times on Morality Police
Wooo HOOOO on you, Jamie Etheridge; you bring grammar, tone and content to the Kuwait Times
Kuwait’s illegal morality police
Published Date: January 02, 2009
By Jamie Etheridge
Two female students were attacked by two youths this past week in Hawally, reportedly for not wearing the hijab. The girls were standing outside their school when two bearded young men jumped from an SUV, whacked them with a stick and then jumped back into their truck and took off. The incident sparked outrage and triggered discussions across Kuwait about the self-proclaimed morality police encouraged by a radical Islamist cleric Mubarak Al-Bathali.
In late December, Al-Bathali announced that he had established a voluntary committee for the “Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice” along the lines of the dreaded Saudi mutaween. The mutaween are a sort of religious police that patrol the streets in the villages and cities of Saudi Arabia, ensuring that women are covered from head to toe, that men go to the mosque to pray and that unmarried men and women do not mix in public. They also enforce other important moral strictures, like no mixed dancing or playing rock and roll music.
Al-Bathali said that his ‘vice’ squad will patrol the Sulaibikhat area first and then slowly spread out to other areas. It’s not clear who was behind the attacks in Hawally. Some have argued that it might have been just a couple of youths having fun and playing a trick on the girls by whacking them like the mutaween in Saudi do.
Let’s hope it was a bad joke by bored teens. God help us if random groups of men suddenly start forming ‘morality’ patrols and beating women on the streets of Kuwait. A Kuwaiti mutaween would create a host of problems.
First, the morality police would be trying to enforce a brand of radical Islam and ideology many in Kuwait – both citizens and expats – do not follow. Many Muslim women in this country do not wear hijab and there are no laws that require them to do so – despite the best efforts of the fundamentalists in parliament.
Second, Kuwaitis are highly protective of their female family members and few are likely to accept strange men whacking their mothers, sisters, daughters, wives and aunts in public areas. Following the 1990-1991 Iraqi invasion and occupation, some radical Islamists tried to establish a religious police and had begun even stationing ‘officers’ outside the Co-ops in Jabriya, Surra and elsewhere.
These mullahs carried short sticks and would strike women coming out of the Co-ops who they deemed to be dressed inappropriately. The women, of course, immediately called their male relatives who then rushed to the Co-ops and attacked the mullahs for attacking the women. The resulting chaos led to the banning of the self proclaimed morality cops.
Third, an ad hoc security force running loose around the country poses a real and present danger to the forces of the Interior Minister and by extension, the stability and security of Kuwait as a whole.
Nearly 20 years later, the radicals have reemerged and wider popularity – as evidenced by the fundamentalists victory in parliamentary polls – has encouraged them to reassert their plans for greater social control.
Success for the mullahs will mean failure for Kuwait’s experiment with democracy. Unlike the rest of the Gulf Arab states, Kuwait isn’t just beginning this experiment. For nearly half a century, this diminutive Muslim country has balanced tribal mores and religious identity with the Islamic and democratic ideals of freedom, dignity and self respect. Allowing roving bands of self appointed religious police to patrol the streets of Kuwait will undermine all of the country’s efforts toward balancing tradition
and modernity.
Rose-Colored Sunrise 31 Dec 2008
When we got up this morning, it was DARK, at a time when it is normally lighter. When I looked out my window, there were heavy clouds, everything looked dark and sombre:
Minutes later, the sun begins to break through and the clouds look less substantial:
And then – the light! The sun breaks through!
And, a short time later, the day shimmers in silver and gold:
All that drama, and the morning is yet young! Wooo HOOOO, what a day this might be!
These are funny days, December 29th – 31st, days in which those who follow the Islamic calendar are already in the new year, and days in which we are still waiting. Tomorrow we will all be back on track, starting off a new year. In Kuwait, schools this week reported 85% absenteeism. Schools were open – but the students didn’t come!
AdventureMan and I briefly reviewed our year 2008 before praying this morning. For us – even though our financial investments are (on paper) in the depths – this has been a very good year. We have each other, and we have our sweet Qatteri Cat.
We have been greatly blessed to have had more time with our son this year than any year we can remember in the last ten years. We love our time with him, and with his wife. We have had weddings, and lots of family times with my family. We have had wonderful times with our friends, old and new. God has blessed us abundantly.
In every way that really matters, life is sweet. We thank God for 2008. We thank God, even for the challenges that 2009 will bring.
Brothers and sisters, we wish you peace, peace in your spirits, peace in your families, peace in your nations, and a desire to meet all obstacles with peaceful intentions. We wish you peaceful times with family, and peaceful resolutions of any conflicts. May your New Year be filled with unexpected blessings!
Sunrise 30 December 2008
Good Morning, Kuwait!
There are tiny, fleecy clouds in the sky, nothing to speak of, no rain in sight. The scum on the horizon is diminished. It is going to be another gorgeous “winter” day in Kuwait. Light sweater weather – my favorite!
Christmas is all put away, and we are readying to welcome in the New Year. Happy New Year (already) to my friends who celebrated the Islamic New Year yesterday. May God richly bless you in the year to come.
(As I write that, I realize with a start that we don’t think the way God does. What if the economic crisis, our dwindling investments, the rising prices – what if these are all a part of God’s blessing, and we don’t see it? What if he is demonstrating that we can live more simply, more happily, with less? What if he is telling us we can be happy eating less, spending less, what if he is telling us our greatest blessings are family? good health? moderation? Hmmmmmmm. . . . . . )
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