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Given what I've been told by Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians, Jordanians, Egyptians, Moroccans and even a Kurd and a Pashto about Peninsular Arabs in general (which includes Yemenis) it is fair to say that Peninsular Arabs have their own twist of crazy.
Yemeni Arabs, like most Muslims tend to do when their is no stability, have fallen back onto old school ways of Islamic thinking that was halal during the time of the Prophet. There are Shia rebels in the north of Yemen, al-Qaida effectively controls the eastern half of Yemen and since the people appear to allow child brides than it can only be indicative of something in the culture being amiss. Personally, my money is on the fact that a once-strong secular, albeit authoritarian, government is gone.
Personally
I don't see what occurred with the Yemeni Arabs as something that's really all that unique - and I say that in light of how what the OP article notes is a very complicated situation when seeing what has occurred around the world for centuries in many places.
Child Marriage
Too Young to Wed: The Secret World of Child Brides
The child bride dynamic also happens in places such as Niger and Guatemala. I'm also keeping in mind what happens in other places such as India with arranged marriages and alot of the damage that others there have noted...not to mention the stigmatization that can occur if the young girl's "husband" dies - even if the marriage has not been consummated. For more info on that, I highly recommend the film Water, set during the period of the British Raj in India:
Following Hindu tradition during that period, the marriage of young girls to older men was commonplace in certain parts of India. When a man hailing from an orthodox Hindu family died, his young widow would be forced to spend the rest of her life in an institution for widows called a widow's ashram in order to make amends for the sins from her previous life which supposedly caused her husband's death.
Obviously, for child brides - they are not universally mature physically or emotionally. For the girl, she may indeed come to a place of 'happiness' with the arrangements, but it still runs counter to justice, equality and self-determination. And yet the reality many do not consider is how other girls often are sold into marriages by family members for the sake of financial security - and thus, it's a deeply rooted problem that will take a lot to handle....and that isn't always a matter of abuse. For anyone wishing to have clarity on the matter:
- Girls Not Brides
- Before She's Ready
- EARLY MARRIAGE IN SOUTH ASIA
- GirlsNotBrides's Channel - YouTube
- Child Marriage and Forced Marriage | FORWARD
- Child Marriage: An issue whose time has come?
- Child Brides, Stolen Lives: The Problem of Child Marriage
- The Day My God Died | Watch Free Documentary Online
- Stolen Innocence - Campaign Against Bride Trafficking India
- 2175 Stolen Children and the 'Child Bride City' of Putian Exposing
- "Child bride gets divorced after rape, beatings - CNN.com"
- Sold off as 'bride', teen rescued from Haryana village - Times Of India
- Yemen: Child Marriage Spurs Abuse of Girls and Women |Human Rights Watch
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