Child Brides in Yemen

Summarize
Even today many children throughout the world are the victims of forced and arranged marriages. Suffice it to say that such marriages are harmful to the health of those children. Young girls are most often the ones affected by these practices. While they are still very young, sometimes even at birth, their family chooses the husband to whom they will be married as soon as they reach puberty and can bear children. In economically disadvantaged regions, poor families see child marriage as a way to improve their lives. Child marriages constitute a violation of children’s rights. Such marriages have a harmful effect on the health of these children, both physically and psychologically. Girls married off to older men are often beaten and forced to beg on the streets. “Girls are usually afraid of speaking out against their parents’ decision or reporting abuse in a society where a woman is traditionally shamed if she rejects marriage or defies her family.” 13-Year-old Saadah from Yemen was forced into a marriage but managed to escape. The reason why Saadah was married off at such a young age was that Saadah’s father was ill, and no longer able to sustain his family. This article has many examples of situations similar to Saadah’s. It’s becoming a bigger problem for children and needs to be addressed. Children should not be allowed to get beaten and raped; someone needs to put an end to this soon.
Reflect
The last Journal I wrote was on children’s rights, and specifically, child brides. The last article cited was about how Yemen’s minister is seeking a law to end child marriage. The information in this new article, Yemen Child Brides Dare to Challenge, talks about how poor families marry off their children to help get out of poverty. I hadn’t really known that before reading this article. Many times these children find themselves confronted with marital violence. “I am a victim of early marriage,” says Amnah, who was also abused by her husband before she escaped after living just five months with him. “He once put a dagger to my stomach and dragged me out of my parents’ house. He then beat me on the street in front of everyone before taking me back to his house,” If these children try to escape from these marriages, it will almost always be treated with violence. I didn’t really understand that whole idea until after I read this article. I knew about how child brides often got raped on their wedding night, but I didn’t really understand the severity of the violence these girls have to endure on a day-to-day basis. Far too young, they don’t have any input and can be forced to live with these despicable, violent, and loathsome men. In reference to my last journal, I asked the question: Why haven’t they tried to stop this earlier? The answer is that they have, and have actually made some minor achievements. For example, “…In a case that shook Yemen’s conservative society in 2008, a court granted a divorce to eight-year-old Nojud Mohammad Ali, whose unemployed father forced her into marriage with a man 20 years her senior.” This is very very minor, but it’s the conclusion is that they have been trying to create a law to abolish child brides, but not many have been listening. One of the other things I learned from reading this article, was that a lot of the children have escaped from their husbands, but are looked down upon by some of their neighbors. “Girls are usually afraid of speaking out against their parents’ decision or reporting abuse in a society where a woman is traditionally shamed if she rejects marriage or defies her family. While some neighbours sympathise with them, Saadah and Amnah are still met with reproachful stares on the streets.”
Explain
When I decided I wanted to work with the whole idea of Children’s rights in the Middle East, I decided it would be interesting to write another journal specifically talking about Yemen’s child brides. I wanted to find the opinions of the girls who were the victims of being child brides. I went to some newspaper sites such as the New York Times, and the Washington Post, but couldn’t find anything specific to my topic. I then decided that since I couldn’t find anything in those places, that I would just search in Google. I realize it might not have been the best approach to finding a source, but I tried to pick the article that seemed the most legitimate. Gulfnews.com is where I found my article. Before even reading it, I made sure to go to some of the other articles and see how legitimate they were. There were many interesting current event articles and it seemed like a source that would be beneficial. It was definitely difficult finding an article that was specific to what I wanted to talk about. The whole process of finding an article definitely deepened my understanding because of how little information there was on the topic. It made me realize that maybe it’s the whole idea of child brides makes people uneasy, and that is why there is such little information.
Determine
I want to continue with the topic of children’s rights in the Middle East, but I think that I want to move off of the topic of child marriage laws. Now that I have learned a lot about it, I think its time to move on to a different aspect of children’s rights. I’m not completely sure what specifically I want to move to, but I’m interested in broadening my understanding of children in the Middle East and how they are treated differently in different countries. The reason I want to switch to something different is because most of the child bride information had to do with Yemen, and I think that it is important to understand other countries and what they might be doing to deal with the issue of children’s rights. The biggest challenge I had this time with researching my topic was finding an article. I wanted to use a top news site, but I couldn’t find one that had the information I was looking for. Next time I will make sure that one of the top newspaper sites will have what I’m looking for, and If it doesn’t then I will change topics.