crime against humanity.
From the AP:
Pakistanis Order Betrothal of 2-Year-Old
By Khalid Tanveer
MULTAN, Pakistan - A tribal council in Pakistan has ordered the betrothal of a 2-year-old girl to a man 40 years older to punish her uncle for an alleged affair with the man's wife, police said Monday.
The council decreed the girl must marry 42-year-old Mohammed Altaf, her uncle's cousin, when she turns 18, police said.
Altaf, a farmer, divorced his 32-year-old wife over her alleged love affair with his 20-year-old cousin, Mohammed Akmal. Akmal, a bachelor and also a farmer, has no children.
Altaf asked tribal elders in the village of Kacha Chohan, about 215 miles west of the city of Multan in Punjab province, to convene a panchayat, or council, on Feb. 15 to arbitrate and propose a punishment. As punishment, the elders ordered the girl's betrothal and ruled Akmal should also pay a $3,800 fine to the husband. Read more.
Somebody please tell me Amnesty International -- or SOMEBODY IN THIS WORLD -- will see to it that this never comes to pass. The mere fact that a two-year old girl is used as the prize in a punishment is sickening and tragic. Clearly somebody's got to roll up on these tribal folks and alert them to the fact that women are not chattel and are accorded certain human rights that nobody can take from them.
I'm hoping this will be stopped. This is no time to invoke the prime directive. Sometimes culture is wrong and something must be done.
Pakistanis Order Betrothal of 2-Year-Old
By Khalid Tanveer
MULTAN, Pakistan - A tribal council in Pakistan has ordered the betrothal of a 2-year-old girl to a man 40 years older to punish her uncle for an alleged affair with the man's wife, police said Monday.
The council decreed the girl must marry 42-year-old Mohammed Altaf, her uncle's cousin, when she turns 18, police said.
Altaf, a farmer, divorced his 32-year-old wife over her alleged love affair with his 20-year-old cousin, Mohammed Akmal. Akmal, a bachelor and also a farmer, has no children.
Altaf asked tribal elders in the village of Kacha Chohan, about 215 miles west of the city of Multan in Punjab province, to convene a panchayat, or council, on Feb. 15 to arbitrate and propose a punishment. As punishment, the elders ordered the girl's betrothal and ruled Akmal should also pay a $3,800 fine to the husband. Read more.
Somebody please tell me Amnesty International -- or SOMEBODY IN THIS WORLD -- will see to it that this never comes to pass. The mere fact that a two-year old girl is used as the prize in a punishment is sickening and tragic. Clearly somebody's got to roll up on these tribal folks and alert them to the fact that women are not chattel and are accorded certain human rights that nobody can take from them.
I'm hoping this will be stopped. This is no time to invoke the prime directive. Sometimes culture is wrong and something must be done.
