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Jerome Delay / AP
Sarey Amadou, 14, poses in her bedroom in the remote village of Hawkantaki, Niger, July 20. Even though the boy she had a crush on offered a dowry for her, her father insisted that she marry her first cousin, who lives several hours away in the larger village of Guidan Roumdji. Even during the best of times, one out of every three girls in Niger marries before her 15th birthday, a rate of child marriage among the highest in the world, according to a UNICEF survey. Now this custom is being layered on top of a crisis. At times of severe drought, parents pushed to the wall by poverty and hunger are marrying their daughters at even younger ages. A girl married off is one less mouth to feed, and the dowry money she brings in goes to feed others.
This drought-prone country of 16 million is so short on food that it is ranked dead last by international aid organization Save the Children in the percentage of children receiving a "minimum acceptable diet."
-- Reported by the Associated Press
Jerome Delay / AP
Children help prepare the evening meal in a courtyard in the remote village of Hawkantaki, Niger, July 21. In Hawkantaki, it is the rhythm of the land that shapes the cycle of life and crucially, when they marry their daughters.
Jerome Delay / AP
Young girls stand in a field of millet outside the remote village of Hawkantaki, Niger, July 19. In a normal year, the green shoots vaulted out of the ground and rose as high as 13 feet, a wall tall enough to conceal an adult man. This time, they only reached the waist.
Jerome Delay / AP
Rama, 14, poses in her bedroom in the remote village of Hawkantaki, Niger, July 18. Her mother says she is 12. Her husband brought a 100,000 francs ($200) dowry for her in the fall of 2011. Although her mother denies that poverty played a role in precipitating the marriage, Rama says her family would normally have waited at least one more year. "It's because the rainy season was not good that I was married off, and because we are very poor."
Jerome Delay / AP
Children play in the remote village of Hawkantaki, Niger, July 19.
Jerome Delay / AP
Shoubalee Lawali, 15, from Hawkantaki, poses in her bedroom in the remote village of Kintee, Niger, July 19. Her husband is in his mid-20s. She was taken to his village, Kintee, where she now lives with him. "My father has three wives and 23 kids. There are lots of problems at home. I think it was for this reason that they married me."Last year, before the start of the harvest, there were 10 girls in Hawkantaki between the ages of 11 and 15. By spring 2012, seven were married, and another two are engaged.
Jerome Delay / AP
Elders gather for prayer at the mosque in the remote village of Hawkantaki, Niger, July 18. In Niger, the legal age of marriage is 15. The law, however, only applies for civil ceremonies officiated by the state.
Jerome Delay / AP
A man and a boy exit after prayer at the mosque in the remote village of Hawkantaki, Niger, July 18.
Jerome Delay / AP
Sadiya Oumarou, 15, originally from Hawkantaki, poses in her bedroom in the remote village of Tabouka, Niger, July 19. Sadiya was the first of the girls to be married, leaving Hawkantaki for the village of Tabouka last year. One by one, her girlfriends were all married off except one. Like the others, she did not have her period when she became a new bride.
Jerome Delay / AP
Children walk in a courtyard in the remote village of Hawkantaki, Niger.
Jerome Delay / AP
Aicha, 14, poses in her bedroom in the remote village of Kaihi, Niger, July 20. Originally from Hawkantaki, Aicha has been married for seven months.
Jerome Delay / AP
Young girls stare at a visitor in the remote village of Hawkantaki, Niger, July 19.
Jerome Delay / AP
Marliya, 14, poses in her bedroom in the remote village of Hawkantaki, Niger, July 20. Marliya's family was paid just 50,000 francs ($100) for her dowry. Her father used up the money long before her wedding, and she was sent to her husband's home with only a tarp to sleep on.
Jerome Delay / AP
Young women walk past a group of men recharging their cell phones under a tree in the remote village of Hawkantaki, Niger, July 20.
Jerome Delay / AP
Zali Idy, 12, poses in her bedroom in the remote village of Hawkantaki, Niger. Zali was married in 2011. In January 2012, soon after she turned 12, she was carried on a bullock cart to her 23-year-old husband's home.
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I am not on here to bash the young girls in these countries, and I am not here to judge the population. I am here to leave a prayer for the young girls that God step in with His mighty power and save these children from the wolves dressed in sheep clothing. Father you are the creator of all and I know it you that set our steps in life. I know that you make no mistakes in your master plan, and I am not asking that you change your plans. God I am asking you to cover these girls minds Lord help them to mentally digest the things that are going on that they may not understand. Lord heal their bodies of any disease that may be coming to attack their bodies lord. God take control of the government that are benefiting from the pain and dismay of these yourng girl. God help other able countries that can offer help to step in and do what it is that they can do to aide in helping these children. Most of all God please allow these people to get your word as we are allow to in this country God. The Bible.
In Jesus name AMEN
Americans always seem to forget that there are civilizations older than they are and can only judge what they don't want to understand by their own standards.After all Americans must know what's better for people than they do themselves.
This comment is just as racist as you say we "Americans" are. You cannot lump all Americans together by the few comments you see here.
But, you are correct most American have no idea what life is like in countries like these. I sure most of the parents did not want to marry off thier daughthers so soon, it was either that or they all starve.
Agree
In colonial america if a girl was not married off by the age of 14 or 15 parents worried she would be an old maid. Teen marriages were the rule not the exception. The people in this country are hungry, while a group of men are "charging" their cell phones under a tree? They can afford cell phone service but they cannot afford to eat? How many have the latest I Pod or I Pad or latest GPS enabled phone?
I am guessing the cell phones were free from some charity or other and that they don't pay for cell phone service like we do. It is probably an entirely different arrangement.
If cell phones were available in a remote village thirty years ago a child's life could have been saved. The brutal reality of placing a child with damaged knees (dynamite) in a wheel barrow, transporting him from his village to the village clinic. This trip began in the early evening and ended by nightfall the following day. A cell phone could have informed someone with a vehicle who could have met this injured child mid journey and perhaps save a life. All is not what it seems.
We here in the West tend to judge others in terms of our cultural values when they literally do not apply.
The same mistake is made when Westerners try to place our ideas onto Muslims. Their belief system is 180 degrees out from ours.
In other regions of the world the cultures should be judged in the context of their belief system and as long as a person is not being tortured or killed as in Islam, then what difference does it make to us?
Their are many cultures and customs that seem strange to us. With all of the cultural conflicts going on around the world, I recently began to study Eunucks. Wow, that is a big WOW, in how my perception of the subject was wrong. It is curently practiced today and has been going on since the beginning of civilizations. They were not just slaves in the practical text, but were raised to high levels of government im many cases. It is interesting stuff. Google it.
The practice of teenaged brides is not at all uncommon. Especially in terms of political marriage arrangements of the past where very young children were married to grown men. As perverted as it sounds, the practice to them was sound and accepted. Selling daughters (or sons) was spoken of in the Old Testament as slavery was a very respectable social system. This practice was also recognized in Europe as late as the 19th century. And as we see here, is still paracticed today. Why is it so bad if the result is a safe home for the girl?
I am not arguing for the practice, but why must we feel a need to impose our will onto others when physical harm is not being done? The hypocracy of this argument, to me, comes into play when we, Barry, is trying to go to bed with the Muslims who gladly murder their women and children in the name of God every day?
Murdered for God, is not an excuse to subjugate all the women in a totalitarian, male dominated society. But they shout and scream when someone openly critisizes them. I read today where the bounty was raised on the man how wrote the book on Islam.
When I read articles like this and as the one yesterday about the Amish here in America, I get the impression we are being fed news that is an ofhanded comparison of Apples to Oranges scenero that is intended to show the Muslims are not all that bad. What do you think?
Lazarus
who said she was safe?
While not unethical by radical Islam standards, marrying off children for the sake of obtaining a paltry sum that won't last for more than a couple of months is a reprehensible practice. The plight of women world wide is gruesome and grotesque. Remember, any team is only as good as its weakest member, simply another way of stating the monumental task of upgrading the role of women in this world. I am grateful for the many steps that have already been taken toward this end, but that which is still needed is sorely lacking. And, I'm the first to admit that I do not know how you change this within a religion that sanctions and encourages humiliation, degradation and exploitation toward all females. Pathetic and disgusting!!!
Justification of child-marriages, etc., is not needed at all--for that is no solution to the problem. And blaming the Westerners for their superior (in terms of economic, social, cultural, educational development) cultural values is also not needed. The fact is, development has stopped to take place for long in pockets of the world--when the society can't move forward, it putrefies or it tends to move backward. And the whole world gets insulted and humiliated thereby. It is a matter of no grace to anybody living currently in the world that people are starving and they sell away their minor daughters in marriage just to survive for a few days more. It is a matter of no grace to anybody that half the world is illiterate... and it is a matter of no grace that the development has been been deliberately stopped and strangulated and heroes and heroines for the change slaughtered in various international conspiracies...media and politicians and so forth
For the general information of everyone, I will tell you what different aids are about:
A well costing dollars 1000 is constructed in some area where there is lack of water.
Then begin a series of studies costing millions of dollars.
The cost of study of the benefits provided by the well = dollars 100000
Effects on the gender relations = dollars 100000
Effects on the education of children = dollars 100000
The feeling of the elderly people after the construction = dollars 100000
Changes in the community relations = dollars 100000
Effects on agriculture = dollars 100000
Effects on the standard of living = dollars 100000
Effects on food habits = dollars 100000
....
You can add anything you wish to the list of studies. And this goes on an on--studies never come to an end till the well becomes useless.
Then there is research about why the well couldn't be maintained, and it cost money to do even type of research...
And then people begin to wonder where the money that was spent as aid went--and that is the ridiculous part in it. We know where the money was spent--it was spent in unending studies and research, with occasional visits to the wretched place where the well had been constructed after much research and too many sighs and groans.
Maybe everyone could stop bitching about the horrors of life in the west now.In the US for instance, the culture is DOMINATED by heterosexual christians many of whom are married! Oh,the horrors!
Anyone who would sell their children to put money in their pocket because they are poor deserve to starve...I have no mercy for them..they are a barbaric race of people...and deserve the disparity they endure...I would rather die with my family entact than sell my daughters to sick old men so I can have a jingle in my pocket...These people are scum of the earth..religion has blinded them to reality...
What absolute crap. I don't suppose it occurred to you that they may be motivated to sell their daughters, whom they happen to love, to get them into a better situation, did it? If a man has a high bride price, that would be proof that he can take care of the girl's economic needs. That was why girls here expected an expensive piece of jewelry upon engagement, to prove the man had income to spare and could afford a wife. You may consider the practice barbaric but I consider you a short sighted idiot who has no understanding of other cultures or the human heart. How dare you think they do not love their children and want to do the best by them just as we do ours?
When a country keeps their citizens poor,uneducated and uses religion to control them this is the outcome.Woman are considered property in their country.There is absolutely no excuse for the modern world to ignore this and the hunger that these people face on a daily basis.
If you can't feed your children - stop having them. Stupid backwards people.
Really mmm? Have you taken a good hard look around this country lately? "Stupid backwards people" having more children than they and the economy can support? Just pick up a rock and toss it in any direction in your own home town here in good old common sense America!! It's going to land damn close to a doorstep where exactly the same could and should be said and it will have no skin color or religion to hold in comparison or ridicule.
That truly is one repusively narrow minded and blindly moralistic statement that has absolutely no foundation for your self righteous judgement whatsoever! But, you go on believing that ludicrus crap! And while you're at it buy yourself a more comfortable set of blinders to wear, because you are going to need them for the long haul if you are so pitifully naive!
Stupid backwards comment.
It is quite rational to say, "If you can't feed your children - stop having them. Stupid backwards people", but to acquire such sensibility and sense of responsibility needs education and lack of desperation. And for this, I had said miners working in almost all the mines of the world (for example), irrespective of their caste, color, creed, culture, etc., know what working in harsh conditions does ruthlessly to the human sensibility and sense of responsibility. I had quoted that brute, Hitler as well, for he exposed this phenomenon rather well.
The USA provides so much $upport around the world in many ways. What is needed most is FREE birth control for all. I don't mean pills either, I mean surgeries that are difficult to reverse.
And, the ancient methods of birth control, roll on...
Pesky breeding half of this current species of human, how dare they be born to use up their parent's money. How dare the females eat. How dare the females look and live like, well, humans...
How dare a culture consider its females as equals rather than slaves...when those silly females can reproduce the very human race...absolute sinners. And, since females cannot be eliminated...SUBJUGATE them, make them feel like worthless breeders to be married off to older husbands who can take advantage of the youth of the females pressed into their services with the highest dowry possible...
True Love, indeed, and, questionable Birth Control. Knock up the females as young as possible and hope they die along with their potential female offspring in birth. Worthless silly females, how dare the great God have created them in the first place....
If all the politicians ( obama included ) pooled half there income... They could buy the children for the mothers..
Just saying they have too much money and could contribute..................Are they gonna be buried with their money? probly not so spend it for good cause it once belonged to the tax payer.
The look of profound sadness on the faces of these girls,tells the whole story.
Is there a fund somewhere you can contribute to that provides the family with the equivalent of a dowry but also a guarantee that the girl will not be married off?
And, how are they to feed the girl after the dowry is spent? If the girl is married off to a man who can afford to buy her, it can be presumed he can thereafter afford to feed her. Why do you assume that the girls do not want to get married? It is their culture and the girls expect to marry early. An unmarried girl there, at a certain young age, may be considered a reject and teased or otherwise abused just like we used to tease and disdain spinsters. Sometimes even with the best intentions unsolicited interference does more harm than good. If accepted, your suggestion could leave a young girl facing starvation with her birth family rather than having the comforts of an established husband's home. Are you prepared to feed her for life? She may face social rejection as well. Surely, that is not what you want.
Hunger is rampede but the men are outside charging cell phones? Maybe birth control should be offered so that there aren't as many babies to die of starvation?
Don't promote education and birth control. Nope. Against Christianity. Against Islam. Better to be so poor and hungry, you sell your children to child molesters. What else are they. Married to a 12 year old girl. I guess taking care of child molesters is not just a Roman Catholic Church characteristic. Islam has it down to a science. It's a business and good family values passed down generation to generation. How about making it illegal to sell children or to marry anybody under 16? Along with education and free birth contril educuation and pills? Oh my god, blasphemy!!!!
What a dreary existence with not much hope for a better future for these girls. I feel so lucky to have been born in the United States.
I guess they never heard of birth control there.
This doesn't break my heart too much. My own grandmother as well as several of my girlfriends were married at 14. They were happy brides who were glad to marry their husbands. They got nice new homes to live in along with automatic washing machines, furniture and wedding gifts. And, after a year, they only had to mind one baby instead of their mother's last four brats. They already had all the skills they needed to be successful wives. They could cook, wash, clean, care for babies and read the Bible. They loved their husbands and felt life had been good to them. Yes, the men were in their middle 20s, employed and able to provide for them. This was in the US. For perspective, I am 68 now which may account for why I just feel it is no big deal for 14 year olds to marry.
Agreed, with one slight exception. You speak of 'machines', when those folks are lucky to possess thongs.
How convenient... when hungry- sell your daughter into prostitution!
Marriage is a socially recognized economic, legal and possibly a religious arrangement between people whereby they establish family units. It is not prostitution under any definition of the word. Your comment is entirely out of line.
Even same sex marriages. Personally I see no difference, MORALLY, between same sex marriage and prostitution.
This is sad. Not much we can do about, but I'm sure the NAACP probably thinks the nation's name is racist.
You are right on. The NAACP budget exceeds that of all Niger. Thieves among us. Which reminds me, who are most of the casualties in the middle east . . . . . and iot has nothing to do with %%%%%%
Her father has 3 wives and 23 children so he must sell a daughter into marital slavery for money to buy food to feed those wives and children. Maybe one wife and a few children would make more sense?
??? Niger is supposed to make sense when the U.S. doesn't?
Lets see now. Russia doesn't need U.S. bribery money, and Niger is selling off it pre-teen girls via the dowry.
Bribe Niger. It makes absolutely no sense to send $ 2.7 to Russia who in turn supports and aids Syria militarily. The U.S. congress is being played for the greedy fools they really are. Of course, bribing Niger might be even more difficult. Consider its political bent.