UNICEF photo of the year
Stephanie Sinclair won the UNICEF photo of the year for her haunting picture of a 40-year-man and his 11-year-old bride in Afghanistan.
Link (Via Nothing To Do With Arbroath)He’s forty, she’s eleven. And they are a couple – the Afghan man Mohammed F.* and the child Ghulam H.*. “We needed the money”, Ghulam’s parents said. Faiz claims he is going to send her to school. But the women of Damarda village in Afghanistan’s Ghor province know better: “Our men don’t want educated women.” They predict that Ghulam will be married within a few weeks after her engagement in 2006, so as to bear children for Faiz.
During her stay in Afghanistan, it consistently struck American photographer Stephanie Sinclair how many young girls are married to much older men. She decided to raise awareness about this topic with her pictures. Particularly as the official minimum age for brides in Afghanistan is sixteen and it is therefore illegal to marry children.
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Hmm...well, it is consistent with the example set by the Prophet who had a 9-year-old wife.
Now, can someone explain why naming people by the Prophet's name (regardless of whether the may grow to be good or evil people) is ok but naming a Teddy bear the same thing is blasphemy which can be punished by death?
Rather than actually say what I feel about this facet of the culture, and their prophet who set precedent for it, just imagine a large paragraph without vowels.
oh what the hell, i'll risk just this smidge.
that is going to be one frightened little girl come the wedding night. This is rape.
My favourite part is that they shorten his name to Muhammed F. as if to protect his identity, then use his name "Faiz" later on in the same text.
How long before the apologists arrive?
I would like to apologize for not putting this dirty fools head on the end of a pike.
Please stop defending religion. Let it die.
What ever happened to cultural relativism?
This has nothing to do with religion. It is the culture. Remember they are very different things, but religion is often misused to enforce cultural practices. Head scarfs aren't exactly discussed in the Qu'ran, that is why you see so much variation among Islamic sects and societies. In fact, the prophet Muhammed increased the rights of women and preached equality, it is the male dominated societies of the Middle East that have misused his words to continue the subjugation of women.
"This has nothing to do with religion."
I would agree there except for the fact that their prophet married a 9 year old girl.'
Sure its not part of the religion as say, a law, but its easy for someone to justify something if the founder of your religion did it. Christians don't necessarily go around chopping down unfruitful fig tree's, but i can point out where they could find some justification if they wanted to.
mrfitz: Cultural relativism shouldn't be a cop-out to excuse everything.
If this is a photo contest, perhaps UNICEF could have at least put up pictures with enough resolution to see the people's faces. Even on the linked page, where you can click an author's name to see their other pics, all of them are horrible resolution.
@funeralpudding
I agree. I think the poignancy of the photo lies in the girl's expression. Here's a link to the photo on Stephanie Sinclair's website. The whole "Child Bride" photo set tells a chilling story, in my opinion.
http://www.digitalrailroad.net/stephaniesinclair/Common/PhotoDetailPage.aspx?msa=0&pid=3396824&slid=c9cf6542-2e1f-4853-9a30-12928b50fe48&slididx=34&lid=0&rstid=161d1f02-75c0-4ce5-87ef-01901ee379e4&aid=1
You'd think that, as this is a wedding photo, he could have at least washed his pants...
I'm glad we are pouring our blood and money into this country so they can be free to continue their special customs.
Here are links to high-res versions of all 11 pics
http://i13.tinypic.com/72azwhw.jpg
http://i13.tinypic.com/6tfyvee.jpg
http://i10.tinypic.com/89vpr4j.jpg
http://i19.tinypic.com/714usqr.jpg
http://i1.tinypic.com/828ts8x.jpg
http://i3.tinypic.com/7w5fzmg.jpg
http://i8.tinypic.com/81ykql0.jpg
http://i17.tinypic.com/7x2don5.jpg
http://i17.tinypic.com/6kshvmo.jpg
http://i5.tinypic.com/80ljdso.jpg
http://i18.tinypic.com/728ztzo.jpg
"Sure its not part of the religion as say, a law..." you forget that in Islam, religion IS the law--the Sharia.
of course IANAIL.
This is a great picture, but I can't agree with it being chosen as photo of the year.
The issue is important; the photograph is illustrative and clever, but the world's greatest photographs - purely AS photographs - don't need much in the way of explanation to work. The decisive moment ought to be decisive on its own to merit this kind of praise, IMHO.
And btw child brides are common to many, many religions and sects, including (until relatively recently, and even now in some isolated cases) Christianity in North America.
"you forget that in Islam, religion IS the law--the Sharia."
thats what i meant. I don't think minimum age limits for marriage are covered. although IANAI (I am not an Imam)
"You'd think that, as this is a wedding photo, he could have at least washed his pants..."
That's where she retched on him when she realized what's in store for her, with her dream of being a teacher in ruins.
IMHO, not a matter of culture or religion, but education, knowledge. I'm not apologizing, but it's another world.
I understand its another world, bur rape still happens in other worlds.
You... pathetic... dirty... ignorant... old man.
Religion - truly, a cancer on humanity.
That doesn't really make sense. Of course it is a matter of religion and culture. You are making the false assumption that if we just "educate" them they will come around to our way of thinking. That is classic White Man thinking (I'm not claiming that you are a "White Man," though), that our way is right and that a country will surely change its ways if only we educate them. Balderdash.
This is a case where my culture says what they are doing is wrong. Theirs says it's right. We have god on our side. They have god on their side. There is no easy way to change this. Education can help, but only because it gives the victims more perspective not because it will necessarily change the minds of the perpetrators. This is one reason why they like their women ignorant and un-educated. Ignorance and isolation help will the control and subjugation of women. And the culture, men and women, is bent on perpetuating this culture. So, yes it is a religious thing and yes it is a cultural thing. Islamic culture and religion (and state) are completely intertwined by the design of the Prophet for complete control over the populace.
To understand why this is so common, you need to know about Pashtun culture and methods for dealing disagreements. Great article at the Economist last year - "Honour among them; Pushtunwali.(The Pushtuns' tribal code)" It's sadly behind a feewall, here's the link: http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8345531
If someone finds an open version, please post the url. I know you can get it through a reg-page via findarticles.
@8 claims: "the prophet Muhammed increased the rights of women and preached equality"
The first part of this statement is probably true. The second part is certainly false.
Even without going to sharia, the Koran itself is blatantly misogynistic. My absolute favourite: "Women are your fields: go, then, into your fields whence you please." [*]
There are a couple of things one can learn from this and many other statements that God makes through his mouthpiece, Mohammed (~0:-{=). The first is that the Koran is to be read only by men. It would hardly make sense to say "You are your fields", which would be the sense if Mohammed (~0:-{=) was addressing God's word to women. The second is, well, the literal meaning of the statement, coupled with other goodies, like: "Women shall with justice have rights similar to those exercised against them, although men have a status above women." [*]
If this is preaching equality, I'd hate to see what preaching misogyny looks like.
[*] Please don't bother chiming in that the Koran is gibberish. Every time I quote from it some apologist says this, and it's, like, a really lame way to argue. If the Koran is untranslatable it is gibberish. If it is not gibberish then it is translatable. If you disagree with the translations I've provided (from Dawood's Penguin edition) provide your own and show that they differ substantively in the underlying attitude of contempt toward women.
Adding to this problem...
A few years ago I read an article (unfortunately, I don't recall where I saw it) that wormed its way through the subjects of child brides, bride selling, etc. in a few spots around the world -- although I think it mostly focused on Asia, Africa, and maybe the Middle East.
One thing I recall from the article was that young men in certain communities sometimes had difficulty finding wives because all the women their age and younger had been sold off to older men. Most of the time -- with some exceptions, of course -- these younger men couldn't immediately afford to enter this market (Yeesh! Did I just call it a "market"?), so they often had to save their money and wait.
And no, I'm not excusing the practice of brideselling/buying. I'm merely recognizing that there might be a self-perpetuating element to the problem.
Should the practice end? I'd vote for that. But whoever makes such a change in legal (or traditional/tribal) codes may have to be ready for the hostile reaction of some small or large population of lonely, embittered, wait-listed 40 year-old men going postal.
"What? You mean I've let the local warlord's thugs bugger me like a goat for the past 25 years, and now I don't get a child bride? WE HAD A DEAL! Where's my gun?"
Hm. Yeah. I guess it's easy for me to oppose the practice since I don't manage security in one of those potential hot spots. (Perhaps I'm exaggerating with my speculation about an organized insurgency of dirty old men.)
h, plgsts fr pdphls n th cmmnts. Wll nw 'v sn vrythng.
thnk y'd fnd m t b srprsngly lbrl n scl mttrs, gvn my nm, bt d thnk thr's sch s thng s "t ccptng" nd wld nt gr tht "ll cltrs r vld". Sm cltrs r blght n hmnty.
These practices are not out of line for a developing nation. The U.S. during the 18th and 19th century condoned marriages that were very similar in the age discrepancy, and they also had God on their side to bless those unions. Is this disgusting? Absolutely. Is this girl's life ruined? You bet, just as it would have been if she waited until she was 14 or 16 (like Britney's sister) to get married and have bebes in such a wrecked country. And it's disturbing that the culture condones it, just as ours did 200 hundred years ago.
But instead of jumping on these people's cultural practices and religious beliefs, why not address the elephant in the room? The parents said, "We needed the money." From a guy with dirty pants. How can a culture evolve if the people don't have the resources to take care of their basic needs? I'm pretty sure they didn't marry off their daughter so that they could upgrade to HBO on their cable package.
Poverty and hunger are terrible, and powerful, things. If this really disgusts you, send the family some money to call off the wedding. I'm sure you and your office mates could pool together more than Mr. Crappy Pants there.
Go to the UNICEF website and donate. I just put up $50 bucks. Customs like thse are in place to help these poor people deal with a lack of resources. This particular guy may be a monster, but he's not representative of the whole culture. If you want to stop people like him, get off your butt and do so. But don't be ignorant or hypocritical and slam the whole culture or their religious beliefs based on one facet. God forbid we get judged as a culture based on what Britney Spears and her trailer trash family does. Americans, cast in a certain light, are a bigger blight on humanity than anyone.
...is a girl being exposed to sex a couple years earlier than the average in the States really something to get riled up about?
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Wow! Just...wow!
This story doesn't mean that all aspects of Islam are vile, or that Afghan/Pushtun culture is a blight on humanity, or that religion itself is inherently evil. It's about the practice of marrying off immature girls, which is unfortunately sanctioned by the hadiths.
By the way, the Bible doesn't say a word about there being a minimum age for marriage. I'm not sure any early legal codes gave girls significant protection from premature marriage. For instance, Roman girls were married at twelve or earlier, whether or not they'd gone through puberty, and it was common for fathers to sell unwanted girl children to brothels. In the Satyricon (admittedly a work of fiction), there's a sexual episode involving a seven-year-old girl. Bystanders are more dubious than shocked. One woman observes that she literally can't remember ever having been a virgin.
Before you get too involved in cultural comparisons, look up Short Creek, Arizona, latterly known as Colorado City. Underage marriage and domestic sexual slavery aren't specific to any society, culture, or religion. They're a symptom of female disempowerment.
Thivai (28) is right. All over the world, desperately poor parents sell their children into sexually exploitive situations. It's one of the Invisible Hand of the Marketplace's nastier habits.
Teresa @29, of course this doesn't prove all aspects of Islam are vile, any more than Paul's misogyny or the instructions on how and when it is permissible to rape female prisoners of war in the OT are proof that all aspects of Christianity or Judaism are vile.
But those things certainly prove that some aspects of those religions are vile, and it raises a quite fundamental question: how do you tell which aspects are which and what principle do you apply that is higher than the principles of those religions to make that distinction?
And once you have that principle in hand, which might have something like "humanism" in its name, why would you have any time for religion at all, except as something to oppose in the most open-eyed and dispassionate way you can manage (me, I'm still working on the whole dispassionate thing...)
She is lucky to get married.
Her family is poor, now she has a house and shelter and food. Something she would not have in AFGHANISTAN with her poverty level.
Now the Prophet. He had MANY WIVES. The youngest was about 11 or twelve. This does not mean he had sex with her. But this is what the evil bastards that want to make Islam look bad will say.
The Quran states that God has created Woman and Man equal, but then He goes on to state the OBVIOUS that man is PHYSICALLY superior.
You twits can argue about the Quran all day, but until you actually read it with an OPEN MIND, you are Deaf, Dumb, and Blind fools stuck on this material existence.
The poor girl's family had no choice, and I feel so sorry for her. But screw you if you throw your twisted version of Islam into the mix to justify the lower human qualities of a country stricken with poverty, war, and blatant sexism.
"A child is an individual who has not yet reached puberty." [The American Heritage Dictionary]
Are you sure that the girl is not an adult? i.e. doesn't get menstruation ??
As late as 1930 (just 77 years ago), twelve states in America allowed boys as young as 14 and girls as young as 12 to marry (with parental consent)!!!
Throughout most of the 19th century, the minimum age of consent for sexual intercourse in most American states was 10 years. In Delaware it was only 7 years !! Yes... 7 years !!!!
Even today (in 2007), the marriageable age in some American states like New Hampshire is 14 for males and 13 for females, in cases of "special cause" with parental consent and court permission.
In New York it is 16 with parental consent, 14 with parental and judicial consent. It is the same case in Canada (14 with judicial consent).
In other Christian countries, like Brazil, marital status is granted by law to adolescents (legally defined as individuals from 12 to 17) !
Is there a big difference between 12 (the legal age of marriage in Brazil) and 11 (the age of that Afghani girl)??
Was St. Joseph a pedophile because he married the Virgin Mary at age 12, while he was 90 years old ??
Those "barbarian" people gave us the alphabet and taught us how to write. They were building great civilizations when our ancestors were hunter gatherers making scratches on the walls of Europe's caves.
People do not have access to absolute knowledge of reality, but only have access to a set of beliefs they have built up over time, about reality. So it is important to be aware that people's beliefs about reality and their awareness of things are not reality itself or everything they could be aware of.