Child Bride Murders Groom and 3 of his Friends

Out of Nigeria, Africa, comes the very tragic story of a 14 year old girl who was forced to marry a 35 year old man. Days later, she bought some rat poison at a market and used it to prepare a meal for her husband and several of his friends.

The groom, Umaru Sani, and one friend died that day. Two others died in hospital later.

They were from a village, Ungwar Yansoro, which is about 100 km from the city of Kano in northern Yuganda. 

Wasila Umaru confessed to poisoning the men because she was forced to marry someone she did not love.

Child marriage is common sub-Saharan Africa and especially in the mainly Muslim and impoverished north of Nigeria. In times of drought, the number of child brides increase because the parents of the bride are paid by the groom and she is one less mouth to feed.

Half of all girls living in rural Nigeria are married before they turn 18. There are more than 20 million girls under 18 in Nigeria. I do not know the ratio of city-dwellers to urban people.

There are so many tragedies for child brides it is difficult for many of us to grasp. In some countries girls can be married before the age of 8, although, legally, the marriage cannot be consummated until the girl is at least 8 years old. An 8 year old girl is not ready for sex, especially with a physically mature man.

And, teenage girls are often not ready to have children, especially in rural areas of 3rd world countries. Consequently, complications in pregnancy is the leading cause of death for girls between 15 and 19 years of age, globally!

Yarima and one of his brides

Child brides have a much higher risk of contracting AIDS, and are much more likely to suffer from physical abuse at the hands of her husband and his family.

In Nigeria, you cannot legally marry a girl under the age of 18. However, in the mainly Muslim north, there is little respect for Nigerian law. They are far more likely to follow Shariah, and the government is largely incapable of enforcing their laws in the north, so, no-one has ever been prosecuted for marrying a child bride.

Another of Yarima's brides
She was 13 when married

Sen Yarima

 Shariah allows a man to have 4 wives. One rather infamous person to take advantage of Shariah is Senator Sani Ahmed Yerima. The senator, and former Governor of Zamfara State, wanted to marry a 14 year old girl, but already had 4 wives, so he divorced a wife who was just 17 years old. Yarima was 49 years old at the time.

Divorced child brides and many of those who suffer complications from pregnancy or other medical issues, are simply just tossed out onto the streets. Used, abused, and then thrown away - that's what Shariah law means to girls.

Please pray for this horrific practice to end along with the absurdly misogynistic attitude that allows it.

Temporary Child Marriages Sanctioned by Islam - Legalized Pedophilia

Excellent report from France24  on temporary marriages in Kerala State, India. Watch the video at the following link.

http://www.france24.com/en/20131114-asia-live-india-temporary-marriages-islamic-law-kerala-state

The report reveals the thousands of children born to young girls who are quickly divorced only to find themselves pregnant. The story follows one girl whose marriage was arranged by the orphanage in which she lived. She was not given any choice in the matter. She was divorced within a month.

This is similar to the practice in Egypt of parents prostituting their little girls by having them marry Islamic adult men for a night, a weekend, or a month or two, then divorce. 

As in Egypt, the practice in Kerala is sanctioned by Islam.

Save A Child from Sexual Abuse by 3:15 PM

The need for prayer on the subject of child sexual abuse is so profound it should weigh heavily on our souls if we ignore it. If it doesn't  please click on the link under First Time Visitor? and learn. God Bless.

This is my 3:15 PM (Prayer Model). Pray for 3 minutes, once a day, for 5 children. I believe that God will save one or more of those children even though we don’t have names or places to be specific about. 

Of course, this is a model, a starting point, you can pray however the Holy Spirit leads you. It's less important how you pray than that you pray. I believe that God cannot change the situation without our prayers.

Ask God to save one child who has never been abused from being molested – to literally stop an abuse that is about to happen, and to protect that child from any further attempts at abuse.

Ask God to deliver one child who is being abused at this very moment from its abuser, and to protect that child from any further attempts at abuse.

Ask God to deliver one child from chronic sexual abuse like child marriages or forced prostitution. To break her bonds whether they are physical, emotional, chemical or psychological, and give her the courage and opportunity to escape. Ask God to direct her steps to the help she needs to fully recover.

Ask God to stop one little girl from becoming a child bride.

Ask God to save one little girl from the horror of female circumcision.

If you have the faith pray for 100 children rather than one.

Thank Him for hearing our prayers.

Other matters we should pray about:

Ask God to deliver the men involved with these girls from the evil they commit and save them if at all possible. If that is not possible, then ask the Lord to do what He has to do to stop them from committing further abuse.

Pray for cultural changes in populations where girls are seen as burdens and are treated as sexual toys by men.

Pray for the billions of sexually abused children and adults to be set free from the bondage of their abuse, and brought into a healthy relationship with Jesus Christ.

Pray against the poverty that is so severe in so many countries that parents sell their little girls to grown men for marriage or outright prostitution.

Pray for governments, the police, and the courts to become far more sympathetic to child sex abuse victims, and much more protective of our children.

Pray for a way to eliminate child pornography.

Pray for a way to end the 'Rape Culture' that is so prevalent in our universities and elsewhere. This may require an end to, or difficulty accessing, pornography for adolescents.

Ask God what you can do to help.

UN Report - 7.3m Teen Births, 2m under 15, per Year in 3rd World

Teen pregnancies in the developing world are declining, but more than 7 million girls under the age of 18 are still giving birth each year, according to a United Nations report released Wednesday.

The U.N. Population Fund expressed particular alarm about the dangers facing girls 14 or younger, who account for 2 million of the 7.3 million births to women under 18 in developing countries. This group faces the gravest long-term social and health consequences from giving birth as teens.

An unnamed teenager holds her son in Bangkok

"A girl who is pregnant at 14 is a girl whose rights have been violated and whose future is derailed," the fund's executive director, Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, said in London.

The report looked at births to women under 18 worldwide, the underlying causes of teen pregnancy, and possible solutions to the problem, which the U.N. said is part of a vicious cycle of rights violations.

"The reality is that adolescent pregnancy is most often not the result of a deliberate choice, but rather the absence of choices, and of circumstances beyond a girl's control," Osotimehin wrote in the report. "It is a consequence of little or no access to school, employment, quality information and health care." Basically - poverty!

The report said that high rates of adolescent pregnancies correspond with other social problems: "Early pregnancies reflect powerlessness, poverty and pressures — from partners, peers, families and communities. And in too many instances, they are the result of sexual violence or coercion."

The issue is most evident in the developing world — with 95 per cent of births to women under 18 occurring there. Ten per cent of women ages 20-24 in the Middle East reported at least one birth before age 18, while 22 per cent did in South Asia and 28 per cent did in Western and Central Africa, the report says.

Every day, 20,000 girls below age 18 give birth in developing countries. Nine in 10 of these births occur within a marriage or a union — highlighting the scourge of child marriage.

Osotimehin noted a positive World Health Organization report saying that some countries have seen a rapid decline over the past decade in the percentage of women reporting birth before age 15 — a trend attributed largely to a decrease in early and arranged marriages. But its overall tone set out the case for urgent action.

"The birth or pregnancy in one adolescent is unacceptable. One," Osotimehin told reporters in London. "Whether it's going up or down is not the issue — 7.3 million is huge."

The U.N. report was careful to note that some girls under 18 want to become pregnant. It stressed the benefits of waiting — such as better health, educational and future income opportunities — and called for a new approach to curbing teen pregnancies that minimizes the emphasis placed on girls' behaviour as an underlying cause.

"Childhood must never be derailed by motherhood," it said, calling for greater efforts to end child marriage and more action on gender equality.

Poverty is also a major contributor to child marriages and child sex slavery. We can certainly do better to improve the lot of 3rd world people with a little will and intent and a lot of prayer.

Please join my 3:15 PM prayer group and please consider sponsoring a child or two in third world countries.

NCIS Takes on Honor Killings

Kudos to NCIS for tonight's episode showing Afghan women who suffer from physical and emotional abuse due to the inherent misogyny of Afghan men. The show revealed the intense hatred of anything sensual from a woman by men who invoke the name of Allah as justification for acid throwing or murder. 

There were girls sold to men several times their age for marriage - girls as young as 13. We know that some are as young as 8 years old. They showed several women with many marks on their bodies from being beaten by their husbands. They also showed the extent that families would go to to find these women and kill them.

These are called honor killings and are supposed to restore the honor of the family. What honor can a family have when the husbands beats his wife mercilessly? What honor can a family have when a man in his 40's marries an 8 or 10 or 12 year old girl. 

If that is a marriage that is honored by Allah, then I'm glad I believe in Jesus Christ, because He would consider that pedophilia and rape. Since we all have to stand before Him in judgement - even the Quran says so, an awful lot of Muslim men have a lot to be accountable for.


Please join my 3:15 PM prayer group and enable God to bring an end to dowries, child brides and honor killings.

The Horror of Being a Child Bride

Gulf News

Her story is typical of many girls and young women in Yemen. But what can be done to spare future generations the same fate? Ask Noora Al Shami about her wedding day and she remembers the childish delight of an 11-year-old girl playing at being an adult. She was thrilled at friends and family gathering for a three-day party in the Yemeni port city of Al Hudaydah, 140 miles west of the capital city of Sana’a.

There were traditional singers and dancers, with one musician performing love songs to the backing of a traditional oud, a pear-shaped stringed instrument. Food including spiced lamb and rice was plentiful, and the little girl wore “three really beautiful dresses”, two green and one white, for each day of the celebrations.

“I was allowed to wear adult clothes, to put on jewelry, to accept presents,” recalls Noora, who is now 35. “What had not dawned on me was that I would be abused by a violent criminal.”

The assailant was Mohammad Al Ahdam, a distant cousin who was well into his 30s when he married Noora in 1989, just after her 11th birthday. “He was three times my age and saw marriage as a means to act like a depraved animal,” said Noora, who has agreed to speak about her experiences in a bid to highlight the problem of child marriages, and ultimately to stop them.

Earlier this month she visited the Sana’a parliament, and called for “awareness campaigns” across the country in front of elected officials.

Child marriages are scandalously common in Yemen. According to Human Rights Watch figures from 2006, 14 per cent of girls are married by the time they are 15, and more than 50 per cent before the age of 18. The motivation among impoverished families is to get rid of a mouth to feed at an early age, and to replace it with a possible share in a generous dowry.

Physical and psychological problems last a lifetime, however, and recently there have been unconfirmed reports of an eight-year-old bride dying from her injuries on her wedding night. (See http://northwoodssaveachild.blogspot.ca/2013/09/child-bride-dies-on-wedding-night.html). That has led to calls for the legal age of marriage to be raised from 15 to 18. But even if the law was changed, there is no minimum age for marriage in Islamic law, and Yemeni clerics regularly argue against legal restrictions.

“It’s not really something that the law has been able to control, especially not in tribal communities,” said Noora. “The legal marriage age has been 15 for some time, but my mother was first married at nine, and divorced by 10, before going through another two marriages. She had me in her early teens.

“I wanted to stay at school and get a good job, but my parents could not afford it. They did not want me to live in poverty forever. I did not understand their decision to marry me off, only that the same thing happened to most girls my age.

“My husband provided a dowry of around $150 (Dh550.85), which was a huge amount. But it was at the end of the wedding that the fear and horror set in. I was taken away from my parents and left with a man who meant nothing to me. He drove me to the house he shared with his widowed father in Al Hudaydah. It was a nice home but I immediately started to quiver, and to cry.”

When Al Ahdam, a clerical worker in the city’s Red Sea port, took his clothes off in front of Noora for the first time, she ran away. She avoided sex for 10 days, before being told by Al Ahdam’s sisters that she was “bringing shame on our brother by rejecting him”.

After succumbing to Al Ahdam’s advances for the first time, Noora’s body went into shock. “I was rushed to hospital. I was a child being treated as a sex object, but the abuse did not stop. Nobody was interested in my complaints as I was legally a wife.”

There were two miscarriages within a year, before Noora gave birth to a son called Ihab when she was 13. A daughter, Ahlam, followed when Noora was 14, and then Shehab, another son, when she was 15. All of the pregnancies were problematic.

Al Ahdam became increasingly violent. “He thought nothing of hitting me, even when I was pregnant,” said Noora. “If his father hadn't been in the house, it would have been even worse. His presence was some kind of restraint, but I was still very badly injured.” The children suffered too. When Ahlam was two, Al Ahdam grabbed her by the feet and banged her on the floor. Bleeding, the child was taken to hospital.

After 10 years of constant attacks, Noora joined a project run by Oxfam and the Yemeni Women’s Union which assists victims of domestic violence. With their help, she successfully filed for divorce.

A further legal battle followed as Noora fought for money to bring up her children. The process is ongoing but she at least managed to return to school and trained as a teacher. Now she is pushing for strictly enforced legislation to end child marriages.

Noora does not want to be dictated by the “ruins of the past”. She hopes that a new generation can be spared her experiences. “We need to change the lives of our children, and not just by paper laws,” she says. “We need a complete change in culture.” 

This is, of course, what we need to be praying for.

Child Brides, Dowries - A Looming Crisis in Southern Sudan

The link below reveals vignettes of the pain of a child bride and problems of young men expected to pay exorbitant dowries for a bride. The video is only a couple minutes long and left me wanting more as it gave a very realistic picture of life in a South Sudan village.


There may be a short commercial in French preceding the video clip. It comes from France24.com.

Video