The One With Aldacron

A request by a mother that a Saudi court grant a divorce to her daughter has been overturned. Her son-in-law is 58. Her daughter is 8 years old.

Lawyer Abdullar Jtili said:”The judge has dismissed the plea, filed by the mother, because she does not have the right to file such a case, and ordered that the plea should be filed by the girl herself when she reaches puberty.”

“She doesn’t know yet that she has been married,” Jtili said then of the girl who was about to begin her fourth year at primary school.

How sick is that? This is not the first time a preteen marriage from the Muslim world has been in the news, but that doesn’t make it any less disgusting. Like other girls in her situation, the poor girl was sold to her husband by her own father. Fortunately, in this particular case, she hasn’t yet been molested.

They said that the father had set a verbal condition by which the marriage is not consummated for another 10 years, when the girl turns 18.

The father had agreed to marry off his daughter for an advance dowry of £5,000, as he was apparently facing financial problems, they said.

There’s a lot that we in the West can be thankful for. One thing is that we no longer live in the Bronze Age (though some Christians would like to take us back there). Muslims in many Middle Eastern countries aren’t so fortunate. As long as they are forced to live under Sharia Law, they can never know what it truly means to be free human beings.

We should never bring “Democracy” to the Middle East by force. That way lies ruin, as Bush has so dramatically shown us. We also will very likely never change anything by diplomacy, as those in power obviously aren’t willing to give up the authority their antiquated system gives them. It looks like Western diplomats aren’t willing to even try, given how everyone’s bending over backwards at the UN to respect religious beliefs at the expense of human rights.

Perhaps the only hope for Muslims in these oppressive societies is to rise up and take their rights for themselves. Some of them are trying. I hope that more begin to do the same.