Why Does the US Have So Many Child Brides? - BBC News

Angel was 13 when her mother forced her to marry and start a family. "I felt like a slave," she says of her childhood.

While countries like Zimbabwe, Malawi and El Salvador have recently banned child marriage, it remains legal in the US - and half of states have no set minimum age below which you cannot get married.

For the BBC's America First? series the BBC's Aleem Maqbool is exploring health and social issues where the US, the richest country in the world, does not perform well in international rankings. Video by Franz Strasser; produced by Ashley Semler

Iraq Ready to Legalise Childhood Marriage

An Iraqi woman walks with her fully-veiled daughter in Baghdad

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Children under nine years old could be legally married and wives forced to comply with sexual demands under newly tabled legislation described by critics as a setback for women's rights

Children in Iraq could be legally married before the age of nine under sweeping legislation tabled on Tuesday that introduces new religious restrictions on women's rights.

As almost its last act before elections at the end of the month, the Iraqi parliament looks likely to pass new marital rules for its majority Shia community with a draft law criticised by human rights activists as "legalised inquality"[.]

The legislation has been approved by the governing coalition in an effort to attract support from Shia Muslims in the April 30 vote.

Current Iraqi law sets the legal age for marriage at 18 without parental approval and states girls as young as 15 can be married only with a guardian's approval. It does not allow for special provisions according to sect.

But the legislation, known as the Jaafari law, introduces rules almost identical to those of neighbouring Iran, a Shia-dominated Islamic theocracy. » | Damien McElroy | Tuesday, April 08, 2014

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: Iraq: Don’t Legalize Marriage for 9-Year-Olds: Draft Law Huge Step Back for Women, Girls » | Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Yemeni Child Bride Dies of Internal Bleeding on Wedding Night — Activist

ARAB NEWS: • Local authorities tried to cover up incident
 • Yemen ignored campaign to ban child marriages

SANAA: An eight-year-old Yemeni girl died of internal bleeding on her wedding night after marrying a man five times her age, a social activist and two local residents said, in a case that has caused an outcry and revived debate about child brides.

Arwa Othman, head of Yemen House of Folklore and a leading rights campaigner, said the girl, identified only as Rawan, was married to a 40-year-old man late last week in the town of Meedi in Hajah province in northwestern Yemen.

“On the wedding night ... she suffered from bleeding and uterine rupture which caused her death,” Othman told Reuters. “They took her to a clinic but the medics couldn’t save her life.”

Othman said authorities had not taken any action against the girl’s family or her husband. » | Reuters | Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Child Brides: How Old Is Too Young to Marry?
The UN warns that 140 million girls will become child brides between 2011 and 2020.

15-year-old Saudi Girl Flees from 90-year-old Husband
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A 15-year old Saudi Arabian bride married off to a 90-year old groom escaped the martial home after she barricaded herself in a room on the wedding night.

The unnamed husband is now suing her parents for recovery of the £10,750 dowry he paid to secure marriage to his child bride.

Newspaper reports in the conservative Islamic state said the girl had managed to secure herself in the marital bedroom before escaping two days later to her parents' home.

The groom told Al-Hayat newspaper that he suspected the groom and her parents had set out to swindle him of the 65,000 Saudi Riyals dowry.

"I feel that there is a conspiracy by her mother against me," he said. "I will go to court tomorrow and demand that her parents give me back my money."

However campaigners in Saudi Arabia have called on the authorities to intervene to ensure the girl in Jizan, a southern town near the border with Yemen, is not returned to the man. » | Damien McElroy | Monday, January 07, 2013

Child Marriages Common in Afghanistan
The UN marks Thursday as International Day of the Girl Child. The focus this year is on ending child marriages. In Afghanistan, the practice is illegal under the law but still very common. Al Jazeera's Jennifer Glasse has been speaking to one woman who was forced into a marriage at the age of 11.

The British Child Brides: Muslim Mosque Leaders Agree to Marry Girl of 12... So Long as Parents Don't Tell Anyone

THE MAIL ON SUNDAY: British Muslim mosque leaders are agreeing to carry out secret marriages with child brides as young as 12 in the UK, it emerged today.

In an undercover investigation, a Shi'te mosque leader agreed to marry a 12-year-old girl so long as she was a willing participant.

A Sunday Times journalist visited the Husaini Islamic Centre in Peterborough - the 'first Shi'te mosque in the whole of Europe' - posing as the father of a 12-year-old girl.

According to the newspaper, the reporter was told by Imam Mohamed Kassamali that 'under sharia [Islamic law] there is no problem' in marrying a 12-year-old.

But while he declared Islamic Law dictated a girl should see 'her first sign of puberty at the house of her husband', he admitted they would all get in to trouble if she went to police saying she was forced into the marriage. » | Suzannah Hills | Sunday, September 09, 2012