Yemeni Fatwa Condoning Underage Marriage

Why would a 30-plus year-old man be interested in an 8-year-old girl? What could he possibly find in common with a child of that age, a pre-pubescent who has yet to become a woman? Who would rather play with dolls than with him? In western countries relations with any girl under the age of 18 would be considered pedophilia, but in some countries, men actually want the option of marrying girls as young as 8.

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In Yemen, they finally passed a law that would legalize marriage for girls 17 and older, after an outraged world learned of 8-year-old Nojoud Muhammed Nasser's forced marriage to Faez Ali Thamer. After 2 months of rape and domestic abuse, she went to the courts, by herself, and asked for a divorce, because her parents refused to help her.

“My father beat me and told me that I must marry this man, and if I did not, I would be raped and no law and no sheikh in this country would help me. I refused but I couldn’t stop the marriage. I asked and begged my mother, father, and aunt to help me to get divorced. They answered, ‘We can do nothing. If you want you can go to court by yourself.’ So this is what I have done."

So for 2 months she was subjected to horrors no young child should endure.

“He used to do bad things to me, and I had no idea as to what a marriage is. I would run from one room to another in order to escape, but in the end he would catch me and beat me and then continued to do what he wanted. I cried so much but no one listened to me. One day I ran away from him and came to the court and talked to them.”

“Whenever I wanted to play in the yard he beat me and asked me to go to the bedroom with him. This lasted for two months," added Nasser. "He was too tough with me, and whenever I asked him for mercy, he beat me and slapped me and then used me. I just want to have a respectful life and divorce him.”

Although some in Yemen, like Islamic Islah party member AbdulAziz alAsali, want the age to be upped to 18, allowing girls to finish high school, believing at 18

"they are mentally and physically ready for marriage."

17 other have issued a "fatwa" against the law and demanding that the age-limit be banned. They claim

"that the law has no Islamic foundation and violates Sharia, the Islamic law, which the Constitution of the country affirms as the basis of all of its laws. "The marriage age," says the assistant secretary general of the Islah party, Mohammad Assadi, "is an Islamic rule, and political parties cannot intervene in such affairs."

So basically, these 17 men are saying it's okay for dirty old men to violate and abuse young girls, as long as they're married, because it's an Islamic rule? Something is very wrong with that picture!