http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=250777A new report from the Middle East Media Research Institute documents that an adult man can obtain a child bride in Pakistan for as little as $1,150.
While critical observers cry "pedophilia," a survey from the Sujag Sansar Organization, a children's rights charity there, said families involved say it's a tribal custom, it is done for financial reasons and they simply do not believe there is anything wrong with it.
In Western culture, children and sex are mutually exclusive topics, and, when they are mixed, it causes trouble, as it does when abortion businesses provide services to minors in violation of various laws, and when investigations uncover consumers of child porn.
But in Muslim-dominated cultures, it is more prevalent, to the point of enmeshing American contractors when they operate in those regions.
The report from MEMRI, which monitors and documents media reports throughout the Middle East and other locations, cited a situation that developed only weeks ago in the Pakistani town of Sheikhupura.
There, police raided a wedding hall and arrested the bridegroom and guests just as the marriage of a six-year-old girl, Uzma, was being solemnized.
Police spokesman Bilal Zafar said in the report that the 23-year-old bridegroom was arrested, as was the cleric.
Reports of the arrests drew alarmed responses such as, "Surely this is a sign of pedophilia; how else does one justify a man in his 20s marrying a girl who is just six years old?" according to the MEMRI report. "Why are we as a society so tolerant of such barbaric and medieval practices?"
But the report said a "large number" of such marriages are taking place in Pakistan, mostly in a few specific regions, but only a few cases are being reported.
MEMRI said it was Sujag Sansar Organizaiton, the charity, that assessed the views of families in six villages, and they found that it's accepted in the local tribal system, finances play a role and families simply don't see it as wrong.
"A Pakistani newspaper that has focused on this issue recently published a report titled, 'Child marriages: 10-year-old girls for Rs. 100,000,'" MEMRI reported. That equals about $1,150 U.S.
While the region has a Child Marriage Restraint Act in force that includes punishments for those involved, there are claims the governments simply don't enforce it.
According to reports documented by MEMRI, "The Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child, a nongovernmental organization that focused specifically on the issue [in 2010], reported that around 50 cases of child marriage were noted in [the state of] Sindh alone. ... The nongovernmental organization, which thwarted 18 attempted child marriages with successful intervention, has been working on [closing] the loopholes in the laws governing the offense."
The report also documented in March, "10-year-old Shazia was traded by her mother Zahooran for 100,000 Pakistani Rupees [roughly $1,150 U.S.]. The groom, a resident of Bhangho Behan village in Khairpur [district of Sindh], who 'bought' his young wife, said it was their custom. At least six other girls in the neighboring villages had been married off in a similar manner, he maintained."
According to MEMRI, Sohail Ahmed Abro, a spokesman for the society, said, "when the police intervene in such cases, they usually arrest the 'legal perpetrators' who are committing the child marriage – i.e., both the bride and the groom. These young boys and girls, however, are the victims. Being sent to jail or a protection institution is hardly justice."
MEMRI reports that Pakistan also maintains a Muslim Family Law and has signed the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Children as well as the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women.
Their protections, however, remain "on paper, with little or no implementation," the report said.
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