Saudi girl, eight, married off to 58-year-old is denied divorce

 

* Ian Black, Middle East editor

* The Guardian, Tuesday 23 December 2008

An eight-year old Saudi Arabian girl who was married off by her father to a 58-year-old man has been told she cannot divorce her husband until she reaches puberty.

 

Lawyer Abdu Jtili said the divorce petition was filed by the unnamed girl's divorced mother in August after the marriage contract was signed by her father and the groom. "The judge has dismissed the plea because she [the mother] does not have the right to file, and ordered that the plea should be filed by the girl herself when she reaches puberty," lawyer Abdullah Jtili told the AFP news agency.

 

The case was handled by a court in Qasim province, north of the Saudi capital Riyadh. The girl does not know she is married, said Jtili, adding that he will appeal.

 

In many child marriages, girls are given away to older men in return for dowries or following the custom by which a father promises his daughters and sons to marriage while still children. But the issue is complicated by different interpretations of sharia law and a lack of legal certainty.

 

"There is confusion in Saudi Arabia over the fundamental question of what constitutes adulthood," said Clarisa Bencomo of Human Rights Watch. "There is also vast judicial discretion." The case appears to fit a pattern of divorced fathers using their children to take revenge against their ex-wives. Mothers usually only have custody while the children are young.

 

Relatives said the marriage had not been consummated and that the girl was still living with her mother. They said that the father had set a verbal condition by which the marriage was not to be consummated until the girl turns 18 - although it was unclear how this could be enforced. The father agreed to marry off his daughter for a dowry of 30,000 riyals (£5,400) as he was facing financial problems.

 

Bencomo dismissed the idea that the girl would be able to file for divorce once she reached puberty since there was no standard definition of this. In addition, Saudi judges often insist that even adult women speak to them through a male guardian or lawyer.

 

No figures are available for the number of arranged marriages involving pre-adolescents in Saudi Arabia, where the strictly conservative Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam holds sway and polygamy is common. But human rights groups say they are aware of many such cases.

 

Senior clerics, including Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al-Sheikh, the kingdom's grand mufti, have denounced child marriage. But it is still prevalent in conservative areas. The Shura council recently defined adulthood as starting at age 18 but objections prevented it from being ratified as required by the council of ministers.

What does arranged marriages involving pre-adolescents to much older males say about the strict conservative Sunni Islam society?

 

The 2 threads tonight have featured the 2 most f***ed up and backward religions in the world in terms of their outdated views and hypocricy

 

Islam stones to death homosexuals and adulterers yet at the same time encourages and endorses paedophilia which is at a far worse end of the scale by allowing marriages like this, mind you this is the same f***ed up religion that had its prophet Mohammed marry NINE year old Aisha

The 2 threads tonight have featured the 2 most f***ed up and backward religions in the world in terms of their outdated views and hypocricy

 

Islam stones to death homosexuals and adulterers yet at the same time encourages and endorses paedophilia which is at a far worse end of the scale by allowing marriages like this, mind you this is the same f***ed up religion that had its prophet Mohammed marry NINE year old Aisha

The piece does make it clear that the marriage shouldn't be consumated until the girl is 18. Obviously that doesn't make it right but we should at least get the facts correct. I'm afraid I gave up being surprised by the idiocy that stems from various religions many years ago.

The world would be a billion times better off it there were NO religions and ALL religions were banned

 

 

she cant divorce until puberty?...ok... i hope she isnt allowed sex until puberty aswell....

Let's just hope that he passes away by the time she reaches 18.

 

This shows how the fathers only care about themselves rather than their family. They'd rather sell their children for money.

 

 

The Wahabbi-ists in control of Saudi Arabia are amongst the most fanatical and fukked-up religious nutters on the face of the Earth (whom even the Muslims of Bangladesh and Pakistan describe as "crazy Arabs"), Wahabbi-ism is how the likes of Al Qaeda and the Mujahadeen got started, it is the Wahabbi-ist religious institution which propogates and publishes anti-semitic material which makes its way into UK Mosques, it was SAUDIS who flew the planes on 9/11, it's in SAUDI mosques where the likes of Bin Laden, Bakri, Hamza and other fruitcakes learn to be islamic fundamentalists... Our Govt is supposedly fighting a "war on islamic terrorism", and yet, somehow manage to illegally invade Iraq, a secular, military authority under Saddam which is now being replaced by fanatical religious in-fighting, instead and totally lose all focus on what goes in Saudi Arabia.....

 

And, yeah, this IS fukked-up.. But do you think either the UK or US Govts who rely on Saudi oil and intelligence are gonna say a fukkin' thing about it....? Dont hold your breath.... <_<

And, yeah, this IS fukked-up.. But do you think either the UK or US Govts who rely on Saudi oil and intelligence are gonna say a fukkin' thing about it....? Dont hold your breath.... <_<

 

Exactly. It's not about some moral, ethical, "Iraqi Freedom" horse$h!t. It's "We want your oil and to be able to put military bases on your land. Wait... what do you mean NO?"

 

Meanwhile, the thread's topic in Saudi Arabia is, of course, reprehensible. But it will continue so long as the US/UK bolsters the Saudi regime with weapons, money, support, etc.

 

Democracy in the Middle East! But only if/where it suits us...

 

Democracy in the Middle East! But only if/where it suits us...

 

Let is get our house in order on democracy before we start imposing it on other countries

 

Bush STOLE 2 elections through fraud that he in reality lost

 

Britain has the least number of freedoms and the most lack of privacy in the western world

 

 

Let is get our house in order on democracy before we start imposing it on other countries

 

Bush STOLE 2 elections through fraud that he in reality lost

 

Britain has the least number of freedoms and the most lack of privacy in the western world

 

I totally agree....

 

As famous US broadcaster Edward Murrow once said about McCarthyism - "We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home..". That statement is as true now as it was during the 1950s... In fact, probably moreso....

 

Consie is also spot on.... It's very much a case of 'Freedom... But you do as we say....". The President of Afghanistan, Karzai, is getting more and more p!ssed off with the US/UK occupation and the way we've totally fukked things up (yeah, we build a sodding playpark and a three-lane motorway which goes precisely nowhere, and then forget that people might just need more important things like, oooh, I dunno, uncontaminated, running water, a half-decent electricity supply..... :rolleyes: ) but what can he really do about it...?