Saturday, December 15, 2018

An 8-Year-Old Bride

by Majid Rafizadeh • December 15, 2018 at 5:00 am

After the mullahs' party imposed Sharia law in Iran and made it the official unquestionable law of the land, the authorities immediately changed the age of legal marriage to 9 for girls and 13 for boys. After 40 years, the Sharia-based law has not changed.
The prevalence child marriage "still remains far too high. In a set of 25 countries for which detailed analysis was conducted, at least one in three women marry before the age of 18, and one in five women have their first child before the age of 18." — World Bank.
According to official Iranian statistics, 180,000 child marriages take place there each year. In addition, in 2013 in Iran, a law was passed that allows men to marry their adopted daughters.
Facebook acted as an auction block for a child bride in South Sudan as recently as last month.
Unless the international community steps in and, instead of appealing to the Islamist leaders of Iran, applies pressure to get these laws changed, more children will be at risk.

According to official Iranian statistics, 180,000 child marriages take place there each year. Besides the physical and sexual abuse endured by little girls forced into marriage, many also encounter emotional abuse. (Image source: iStock. Image is illustrative and does not represent any person in the article.)

"At eight years old my parents sat me down for a serious talk," said Noushin, during the interview. "I can still remember the tremble in my mother's voice. She told me that in two days I would be part of an Islamic religious blessing. My father insisted that I behave, and not cause a scene. I was confused, but I trusted them, that they were telling me the truth. I trusted them right up to the moment that the wedding ring went onto my finger and I became the bride of a 43 year old man." Noushin, now 19, is the mother of three.

You might assume that her parents, who so willingly gave their child to this man, were not educated or had never been exposed to modern ways of thinking. In fact, Noushin's father had been educated in Europe, and then came back to his country to work for the regime.