The Incredible Truth about Child Brides

According to the UNICEF report “State of the World’s Children-2009”,  63% of all women aged 20–24 were married before the age of 18. Many have no choice in the matter but are coerced into it by their own parents.

The majority of these marriages are to men who are adults and often middle to old age. For every boy who is married before the age of 18 – 72 girls are married in Mali. In Kenya the ratio is 21 girls for each boy.

Various reports (according to Wikipedia) indicate that in many countries in equatorial Africa, there is a high incidence of marriage among girls younger than 15. But child marriage is also practiced in significant numbers in south Asia, the South Pacific (Oceana) and also, South and Central America. It is often stemmed in tradition but necessitated by extreme poverty. Like child prostitutes, parents are paid relatively large sums of money (often hundreds of US dollars) for virgins by their prospective bridegrooms.

There are many problems that often result from child marriage, including obstetric fistulae – a horrible condition, premature births, stillbirth, sexually transmitted diseases (including cervical cancer), and malaria. We can add to that death by childbirth, death by suicide, and death by internal injuries.

A 13-year-old Yemeni girl died of internal injuries four days after a family-arranged marriage to a man almost twice her age, a human rights group said. UK Daily Mail.

Also, in Yemeni, a 12 year old girl died along with her baby after 3 days of labour. See the YouTube report from CNN. 

Nada al-Ahdal is the amazing, 11 year old, wouldn’t-be, child bride whom I introduced in “Incredibly, It gets even Worse” – a few posts below. She tells of her Aunt who was married at 14 and suffered so much pain that she committed suicide by dousing herself with gasoline and lighting herself on fire.

Hear and see Nada’s full gut-wrenching video. 

Roughly half of Yemeni girls are married before 18, some by the age of eight, even though Yemeni law set the minimum age for marriage at 15; but tribal customs have often flouted the law. In 1999 the minimum marriage age of fifteen for women was abolished; the onset of puberty, interpreted by conservatives to be at the age of nine, was set as a requirement for consummation of marriage. In practice "Yemeni law allows girls of any age to wed, but it forbids sex with them until the indefinite time they’re 'suitable for sexual intercourse".

However, what is the probability that a new husband is going to honour that law? Not so much apparently. In April 2008, Nujood Ali, a 10-year-old girl, sued for divorce after being raped under these conditions. Her case prompted calls to raise the legal age for marriage to 18. Later in 2008, the Supreme Council for Motherhood and Childhood proposed to define the minimum age for marriage at 18 years. The law was passed in April 2009, with the age voted for as 17. But the law was dropped the following day following maneuvers by opposing parliamentarians.

Nujood won her divorce and went on to win international awards, and she published a book, I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced.

In parts of Ethiopia and Nigeria numerous girls are married before the age of 15, some as young as the age of 7. In parts of Mali 39% of girls are married before the age of 15. In Niger and Chad, over 70% of girls are married before the age of 18, according to Wikipedia.

UNICEF's "State of the World's Children-2009" report found that 47% of India's women aged 20–24 were married before the legal age of 18, with 56% marrying before age 18 in rural areas. The report also showed that 40% of the world's child marriages occur in India.

In Bangladesh in 2005, 45% of women then between 25 and 29 were married by the age of 15.

The widespread prevalence of child marriage in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been documented by human rights groups. Saudi clerics have justified the marriage of girls as young as 9, with sanction from the judiciary. There are no current laws in place defining a minimum age of consent in Saudi Arabia.

In some south Pacific islands, children are introduced to sex at a very early age and it is not thought the least bit unusual. So marriage at a very young age is quite normal.

Percentage of women aged 20–24 who were married/in union before the age of 18: 

Rank  Country               % girls married before 18
 1  Niger                                  75
 2  Chad                                  72
 3  Bangladesh                        66
 4  Guinea                                63
 5  Central African Republic   61
 6  Mali                                    55
 7  Mozambique                       52
 8  Malawi                               50
 9  Madagascar                        48
10  Sierra Leone                       48
11  Burkina Faso                      48
12  India                                   47
13  Eritrea                                47
14  Uganda                              46
15  Somalia                              45
16  Nicaragua                           43
17  Zambia                               42
18  Ethiopia                              41
19  Nepal                                 41
20  Dominican Republic          40


Of course, these are just the top 20 countries. Child brides happen everywhere. Also, while most of these countries are Muslim, the biggest country, India, is mostly Hindu, and several of the countries on that list are predominantly Christian.

We need to be praying and raising the profile of these victims of sexual abuse. What can you do?

105 US Children Freed by FBI from Sexual Slavery

The FBI rounded up 105 children freeing them from sexual slavery in 76 different US cities yesterday. Also, 150 pimps were arrested. The youngest prostitute was just 13 years old. It reveals that sexual slavery exists everywhere and no country is safe.

The largest numbers of children rescued were in San Francisco, Detroit, Milwaukee, Denver and New Orleans.

FBI assistant director Ronald Hosko said the Operation Cross Country VII raids had been the agency's largest action against child exploitation.

FBI assistant director Ronald Hosko

The FBI said 2,700 children have been rescued in such US raids since 2003.

The victims in the most recent raids were almost all girls and range in age from 13 to 17.

They had been prostituted in a variety of locations, including truck stops, casinos, motels as well as on social media and online advertisements.

Mr Hosko said the accused had preyed on vulnerable teenagers, exploiting them over a period of time.

"Girls are enticed with compliments or offers, [asked] do they want to make some money," he said.

"Then they are trapped into this cycle that involves drugs, that involves physical abuse. It may involve torture."

Since 2003, some 1,350 people have been convicted in such cases, including life prison sentences for 10 pimps, the FBI said.

Assets of more than $3.1m (£2m) have been seized.

The US justice department has estimated as many as 450,000 children run away from home each year.

It says a third of teens living on the street will be lured toward prostitution within 48 hours of leaving home.

Some lawmakers have said further legal protections are needed.

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden has introduced a bill to require local police, as well as foster care and child welfare programmes to identify children lured into sex trafficking as victims of abuse and neglect, making them eligible for protection and services.

"In much of the country today if a girl is found in the custody of a so-called pimp she is not considered to be a victim of abuse, and that's just wrong and defies common sense," Sen Wyden said during a hearing last month.

Female Genital Circumcision - A Nightmare

If you think male circumcision is barbaric - female circumcision is nightmarish. UNICEF reports that 140 million girls and women are alive today who have been circumcised. The BBC recently reported 125 million but that was restricted to 15-59 year olds. In fact, most of these genital mutilations occur before the girl is 15 and sometimes as mere infants.

The details are gruesome and I hesitate to repeat them here, but there are many different forms of female circumcision from removal of the clitoris to the removal of the clitoris and the inner and outer labia. Very often they cut the vagina and sew it together leaving just enough room for urine and blood to come out. The procedure is then reversed when the girl gets married. Most procedures are not performed in a hospital setting and most parents are in complete agreement with it.

More than 100 million of these girls and women live in equatorial or northeast Africa while most of the remainder are in the middle east and Asia. As many as 200,000 such girls may live in America. Virtually all the victims are Muslims. The WHO avoids saying that in their reports but all the countries named are Islamic and the American girls are also, no doubt, Islamic.

The consequences are many and varied and almost all involve considerable pain. The point of the procedure is to reduce or eliminate the girl's pleasure from sex. This, apparently, promotes chastity and purity.

According to WHO, 30 million more girls are in danger of this genital mutilation in the next 10 years. Let's add them to our prayers and perhaps the Lord will dramatically reduce that number.

My sample prayer in "Save A Child from Sexual Abuse" has been updated to include this.

Please pray, and please spread the word so others will pray.

Incredibly, It gets even Worse - FGM and Child Brides

The calculations in the post immediately below are mine and are based on the best stats I could find. Please feel free to challenge these numbers if you have better ones.

Nada al-Ahdal, a Yemeni girl who was married to a man she did not know.
At the age of ten, this beautiful child was "sold" off in an arranged marriage
by her mother and father.

These numbers do not include the horrific practice of female genital circumcision practiced mainly in the region of equatorial Africa. There, 20 countries perform this barbaric butchery on at least 24% of girls; 14 on 50% of girls; and, incredibly, 8 countries on 88 - 98% of their girls. 

A recent study by UNICEF determined that there are 125 million women and girls alive today who have undergone this mutilation. The good news is, the practice is decreasing. Let us pray that God will expedite that decrease. Read the article from BBC at '125 Million Girls Mutilated' in the Ripped From the Headlines column.

Also in the news today, some good news, sort of.  Marte Dalelv, 24, the pretty young Norwegian woman who was raped in Dubai, was pardoned today and given her papers to leave the country. She had been raped by a co-worker and, unfortunately, reported it to the authorities. Her passport and money were immediately taken from her and she was charged with adultery, drinking and perjury. She was then sentenced to 16 months in prison.

Her rapist was charged for adultery and drinking and sentenced to 13 months in prison. The rape, apparently, was free. He was also pardoned today along with Ms Dalelv. See 'Don't Report Rape in UAE' in Ripped from the Headlines.

Also, I just came across this study from Unicef: According to the study, 39,000 girls are married every day before they turn eighteen. 7,600 of them will be younger than 15. Most of them will have no choice in the matter. Many will marry middle-aged or even old men. Many will be abused sexually and physically. Many will suffer and even die from complications to child-birth.


Read the emotional story of  Nada al-Ahdal, a beautiful, 11 year old, Yemini girl sold as a child bride: 

These girls are not included in the calculations below either.

We men have a lot to answer for when we stand before Christ.

Global Statistics on Child Sexual Abuse (Updated 2/2/16)

New calculations reveal that there are roughly between 

667 and 66,700 children being sexually abused

 at this very moment. 6 out of 7 of them are girls.

These are the statistics I used to estimate the number and frequency of child sexual abuses that occur globally and that I used in my title post "Save A Child from Sexual Abuse by 3:15 PM".

The rates of child sex abuse of 20% for girls and 8% for boys came from Journalist's Resource website. They are also the numbers most frequently used elsewhere, although many organizations are using 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 for girls. But these are just the starting numbers.

    134,000,000 Annual births globally (Wikipedia)
 2,267,280,000 babies born in 18 years (less 6% mortality rate)
 1,133,640,000 girls
 1,133,640,000   boys
 
    226,728,000 girls sexually abused by 18 (20%)
      90,691,200 boys sexually abused by 18 (8%)
    317,419,200 children sexually abused by 18 (=14%)

      12,596,000 girls abused annually
        5,038,400   boys abused annually
      17,634,400  children abused annually

             34,510 girls abused daily
             13,804 boys abused daily
             48,313 children abused daily

               2,013 children abused hourly

                   34 children abused every minute                      1 child every 2 seconds

But wait a minute, it gets worse

There are a few problems with the above stats, starting with having left out Child Brides and victims of female genital mutilation (FGM), which, in my opinion qualifies as a child sex crime, especially since most are performed before puberty. Child Brides often have their marriages consummated at the age of 8 years, resulting of 10 years of Child Sex Abuse (CSA).

There are 130,000,000 women alive today who have had FGM (Wikipedia & WHO). The UN now says that number is 200 million.

The average life expectancy for a woman born in the countries where FGM is popular is much lower than in the rest of the world, frequently below 60 years. But let's be generous and call it 70. So, 200m divided by 70 = 3 million, That's how many FGMs are performed each year.

There are 40,000 child brides every day (National Geographic). That equals 14,600,000 child brides per year. Most are 15 years or older, but 7,600 per day, or 2,774,000 per year are under 15 years. If we use 16 years as the average age, that means those children are sexually abused for 1 to 2 years, before they turn 18. Many are likely still abused after 18 but they no longer count as children.

Now, if we add the 3m FGM and the 14.6m child brides to the 12.6m sexually abused girls we get:

      30,000,000  girls abused annually (rounded)
        5,000,000    boys abused annually
      35,000,000  children abused annually (rounded)

             82,300  girls abused daily
             13,700  boys abused daily
             96,000  children abused daily

               4,000  children abused hourly

                    67    children every minute

                    1.1 child every second

And still worse

The above, however, reflect only the number of children who are sexually abused. It does not reflect the number of child sexual assaults because of repeated abuse of most victims.

The majority of victims (80%) are repeatedly assaulted. Many of them thousands of times like underage prostitutes whether voluntary or forced, and child brides. In one recent story a girl who had been trafficked in Mexico claimed she had been raped 43,200 times.

I have no idea what the average would be but if it were:

Avg # CSA There would be
    10                  6,300,000,000 sexual abuses of children every 18 years
    25                15,800,000,000 These numbers are Billions, with a B.
  100                63,000,000,000
 
    10                     350,500,000 events of child sexual abuse annually
    25                     875,000,000 These numbers are billions
  100                  3,515,800,000
 
    10                            960,000 events of child sexual abuse daily
    25                         2,400,000
  100                         9,600,000
 
    10                              40,000 events of child sexual abuse hourly
    25                            100,000
  100                            400,000
 
    10                                   667 events of child sexual abuse every minute
    25                                1,667
  100                                6,669

 
And, would you believe, even worse still

One more point, these are just the number of abuses that begin. I don't know how long the average child sex abuse episode lasts, but if we assume it's so many minutes:

Minutes There would be
      1                     667
      3                  2,000
      5                  3,333   children sexually abused each minute
    10                  6,667   if average # of abuses per child = 10
 
 
      1                  1,667
      3                  5,000
      5                  8,000         # of children being sexually abused each minute
    10                16,000         if average # of abuses per child = 25


      1                  6,667
      3                20,000
      5                33,000          # of children sexually abused each minute
    10                67,000          if average # of abuses per child = 100
 

In summary, at the very least, 667 children are being sexually abused right now.

At the very worst, as many as 67,000 children may be being abused right now. 

The real number is somewhere between those.

Also, when you include FGM and child brides, as we should, then 6 girls are sexually abused for each boy. The insanity has to stop!

Obviously, the numbers are hardly believable, yet, there they are. We must pray for these children. Please commit to praying for at least one child per day. See my 3:15 PM prayer model, please.

Mother Says Boyfriend's Sex with Her 9 Year-old Daughter was Consensual

An 11 year old Chilean girl had been repeatedly sexually assaulted by her mother's boyfriend for 2 years until she got pregnant. Her decision to keep the baby has sparked the debate - there are people who think she should have an abortion whether she wants one or not.

Update: One of those who thought she should have an abortion is Michelle Bachelet. Michelle won the presidential elections in Chile in November 2013. Abortion rights are very limited in this very conservative, very Catholic continent.

Michelle Bachelet
President of Chile

But that is not what I bring to your attention today. It is the mother's attitude that I want to focus on, because, I suspect that it is not all that rare among mothers of abused children. Maybe you can help me with that, if you know of any examples please share them.

The article quotes the mom defending her boyfriend:
"Her mother shocked Chileans recently when she defended him saying his relationship was consensual."

Excuse me? The girl was nine years old when she was first raped. That's not consensual on any continent! It was, the story states, the child's grandmother who alerted the police and brought the charges, not the mom. The mom appeared quite happy to hide the crime, which, of course, would allow it to continue. I think she qualifies as mother-of-the-year in South America.

Why? Why would a mom allow that to happen to her little girl? Yet, I believe, it happens all the time. Perhaps a mother is more afraid of being abandoned by her boyfriend than anything else. Or, perhaps, the mother herself was abused at a very young age and has accepted such things as 'normal'. We know that sexual abuse is often generational - we've seen that in First Nations populations where earlier generations were sexually abused in Residential Schools in Canada. (See: The Disgrace of Residential Schools)

Let us pray that God will break these generational curses and stop the abuse from being passed on to children. That God would do that through spiritual deliverance would certainly be preferable, but, otherwise, I am fine with Him using a more physical method.

The important thing is that we pray.

After a Decade of Abduction and Rape - 3 Cleveland Girls Speak Out

One has to be pretty impressed with these girls after what they have been through. Three girls kidnapped off the streets of Cleveland, held captive for about a decade, and raped repeatedly by their captor.

Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight (pictured above) each make short statements, detailing how they have been coping since they were freed from Ariel Castro's home in May.

Castro has since committed suicide. Whether he had any help in that endeavor is open to speculation.

While there is still much difficulty ahead for them, it would appear that they are getting the help they need to get past the horror that they suffered. It is important that we pray for God to lead such chronically abused girls/women to the emotional, psychological, and spiritual help that they need to recover.

Amanda Berry

Hear their full statements at "Cleveland Update" 

India's Amazing Anouncement

India announced today that it will begin a very ambitious project to provide basic staples at greatly subsidized prices for people who can't otherwise afford proper nutrition. Some call this a vote-grabbing plan by the government ahead of next year's elections. I don't care! I pray that it will succeed and that the Indian government will have the ability to fund it, which seems to be in some doubt.

The fewer parents who are half-starved in India, the fewer little girls who will get sold into sexual slavery. Lord, please make this happen.

See: India's Cheap Food Program in Ripped from the Headlines

Can Man's Depravity get any Worse?

An article on BBC.co.uk today, has, to my mind, measured a new low in the phenomenal depravity of mankind. It chronicles a new and rapidly growing trend of people sexually abusing children on demand from internet customers. Children are actually sexually abused as the adult(s) involved records and often Skypes the abuse live to a paying customer.

As if there wasn't enough sexual abuse already, now we have a lucrative, commercially viable industry of child sex abuse. Of course, we have had that for a long time with child sex prostitutes. But this is another increment in the utter depravity of man.

The full story can be found on the link "Child Sex Abuse to Order" in "Ripped from the Headlines".

In good news, the 5 Muslim men from Oxford, England, who groomed white girls as young as 11 for rape parties, have been sentenced to life in prison. However, life in England is only a minimum of 20 years. The girls will live with their horrors for life, but that will likely be much longer than 20 years.