Posted on November 28, 2011 by creeping
The joys of sharia? via Man’s marriage to eight-year-old girl ruled legal – Seven News Queensland. h/t @SIOTW_Tweets
A judge has refused to overturn a ruling that declared the arranged marriage of an eight-year-old girl to a 47-year-old man legal.
The Saudi Arabian judge, Sheikh Habib Habib, ruled that the girl’s marriage to a friend of her father’s was legal and binding.
CNN reported the child wife could file for divorce once she reached puberty.
A relative of the girl told CNN the judge first refused to annul the marriage last year but reconsidered the case upon the girl’s mother’s appeal.
The mother’s lawyer argued the girl’s father had arranged the marriage with his “close friend” to pay off a monetary debt.
The relative said the girl’s mother, who is divorced from the father, would continue to seek to overturn the marriage.
Zuhair Harithi from the Saudi Human Rights Commission told CNN child marriages in the country must be fought, saying they “violate international agreements that have been signed by Saudi Arabia and should not be allowed.”
The issue of child marriage has been a hot topic in Saudi Arabia of late.
Rights groups have been petitioning the government to enact laws that would protect children while the kingdom’s top cleric has said that it is OK for girls as young as 10 to wed.
Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, the kingdom’s grand mufti, said last January there is nothing wrong with girls who are 15 or younger being married.
“A girl aged 10 or 12 can be married,” he told a local newspaper.
“Those who think she’s too young are wrong and they are being unfair to her.
“We should know that Sharia law has not brought injustice to women.”
An appeals court in Riyadh will reportedly consider the case again in a hearing next month.
Millions of your tax dollars flow to Saudi Arabia too. In return, we now have many people in the U.S. who are fighting FOR and defending sharia law in the U.S.
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