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DMB
11 Mar 2009, 07:43 PM
See this article about Pakistan:

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46022

Often the child bride is forced into sexual activity with her husband when she is not physically and sexually mature. "This can have severe health consequences," said Shershah Syed, a gynecologist and leading rights activist.

"My husband forced himself upon me that night and every night after that," Rubina narrated, her eyes clouding. "I was so ashamed I couldn’t tell anybody, but I remember, by night time, I’d be so scared, I’d get fever."

Syed says what is happening is nothing short of "child sexual abuse".

"I see such cases every day in the hospital and this is a custom not peculiar to remote and conservative villages alone, but prevalent in a cosmopolitan and modern city like Karachi."

Read the whole article. It is chilling. Abusive, non-consensual child marriage is common in other parts of the Islamic world, but it is not confined to just the Islamic countries. There is also a high incidence in many non-muslim countries.

Izmir Stinger
11 Mar 2009, 08:05 PM
Abusive, non-consensual child marriage is common...

Is this contrasted with loving, consensual child marriage?

DMB
11 Mar 2009, 08:15 PM
I don't approve of any child marriage, but there are degrees of awfulness.