I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced; by Nujood Ali with Delphine Minoui.
Nujood was the first child bride in Yemen to win a divorce- and that was in 2008! The tradition of marrying small children to grown men (who proceed to abuse them physically and sexually) is not a geographically or culturally isolated phenomenon, and it is not changing without a fight.
May there be enough fight inside us all.
No, I didn't understand, and I couldn't understand. Not only was he hurting me, but my family, my own family, was defending him. All that for a question of- what was it? Honor. But this word everyone kept using, exactly what did it mean? I was dumbfounded. (p. 97)
Honor? How can there be talk of honor here?
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. /Inigo Montoya
The defiant child bride is not the one who has broken the code of honor. The rapists and pedophiles, the abusers and abandoners- they themselves have brought the dishonor upon their families. The child only brings this dishonor to light.
Always the victims are blamed.
[A] girl of nine married to a Saudi man died three days after her wedding. Instead of demanding an investigation of this scandalous situation, her parents hastened to apologize to the husband, as if trying to make amends for defective merchandise, and even offered him, in exchange, the dead child's seven-year-old sister.
This is the world we live in... Dune really isn't so far-fetched at all...
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