I’ve often extolled the writing and images produced by National Geographic. This recent article stands out, even among the usual excellent work of NG: “Too Young to Wed: The Secret World of Child Brides.” The gallery of photos included at the website really brings the point of the article home.
This topic leaves a huge pit in my stomach. I’m having a difficult time not thinking about the little girls featured in the article, in that they are being sexually abused, and otherwise treated as property, and that’s what child marriage comes down to. And many of them are being beaten, as well. That’s about what one should expect when the relationship is so incredibly lopsided with regard to money and power.
It’s incredibly shocking and it makes me appreciate that our culture does not tolerate this type of behavior.
NG is too cool to subscribe to – I gave up ours years ago because the shelves got too full. Still, I actually bought that issue off the shelf; I bought it for both this article and the one on the religious temple that pre-dated Stonehenge by 5,000 years. Tragic, the plight of those children.
First of all, thanks for covering this, Erich! I also read this on the flight over here to Cambodia. I thought it was particularly interesting that the author gave some credence to the father's explanation for why he was marrying his daughter off so early– he says something like "well, can you protect her until she marries?" Meaning that she has to be protected from rape to the extent that he doesn't want to be in charge of making sure it doesn't happen. That's how likely it is and how much attention she would require to prevent it! A lot! As though we're supposed to understand and say, "well, what was he SUPPOSED to do? How could he possibly prevent his daughter's rape?" How about addressing the fact that women are so regularly raped in the community/culture? How about talking to other men in his community about why rape hurts us all? We all accept this as inevitable somehow that the young girl will be raped, so better to hand her off to someone else to make it "legitimate". While I was glad to see this story and this topic getting some attention, I was a little disappointed the author made no mention of any of these things.
Thanks again Erich for covering this.