by Damozel | What? The kid's dad just traded off one valuable long-term capital asset in return for a discharge from debt. Anyway, no worries. The eight year old's fiftyish spouse doesn't plan to consummate the marriage till she hits puberty. Look, it says so right here: :
The girl's husband pledged not to consummate the marriage until the girl reaches puberty, according to al-Jutaili, who added that the girl's father arranged the marriage to settle his debts with the man, who is considered "a close friend."(CNN)
The little girl's mother -- who is divorced from her father -- was the one trying to get the child un-married.. Sadly, the divorce is the reason she had no standing -- this is according to the judge -- to represent the child as her guardian. Bzzzzzt! The case was thrown out on a legal technicality. (CNN) But the judge points out that the child herself can petition for a divorce once she reaches puberty. Oh, that's all right then.
According to Jonathan Turley, "Recently, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia endorsed marriages of girls as young as 10." Huh. Well, 8 is not 10, is it?
Apparently there is quite a lot of opposition inside Saudi Arabia itself to child marriage.
In a statement issued shortly after the original verdict, the Society of Defending Women's Rights in Saudi Arabia said the judge's decision went against children's "basic rights."
Marrying children makes them "lose their sense of security and safety," the group said. "Also, it destroys their feeling of being loved and nurtured. It causes them a lifetime of psychological problems and severe depression."
Zuhair al-Harithi, a spokesman for the Saudi Human Rights Commission, a government-run group, told CNN that his organization was fighting child marriages.
"Child marriages violate international agreements that have been signed by Saudi Arabia and should not be allowed," al-Harithi said.
Child marriage is not unusual, said Christoph Wilcke, a Saudi Arabian researcher for the international group Human Rights Watch, after the initial verdict.
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