Child Brides

I wrote the other day about a charity called Plan UK which campaigns against the vile practice of forcing young girls into marriage with much older men, which is common in some Islamic countries .

And then I came across this terrible story on the BBC web site which reports that a 14-year old child bride in Nigeria poisoned her new, 35-year old husband with rat poison killing him and three of his friends while ten others were carted off to hospital.

I have to admit my sympathies lie with the young girl and if I had my way, she is the kind of person who should be offered asylum in the UK.

Nigeria child bride 'poisons older husband'

A 14-year-old girl in the northern Nigerian state of Kano has confessed to killing the man she was forced to marry, police say.

Wasilu Umar admitted killing her husband, who was more than twice her age, by concealing rat poison in his food, the police in Kano said.

Three other people also died and 10 were taken to hospital apparently after eating the same food.

Child marriage is common in Nigeria, especially in the mainly Muslim north.

The girl's father had forced her to marry the 35-year-old man, police said.

The marriage took place last week, police superintendent Musa Magaji Majia told the Associated Press news agency.

The BBC's Will Ross in Nigeria says Islamic police are trying to stop parents from forcing children into marriages against their will and the father could be charged.

The teenager is likely to be tried in a juvenile court.

Plan UK (13 April 2014)

Here's a charity which has caught my attention - Plan UK - and can be reached on the internet at: www.plan-uk.org

Plan UK is running a series of adverts on TV which highlight the problem of child brides - young girls who are sold off as wives, some as young as 12 years old, often to men who are much, much older.

The mere though of it makes my skin creep, especially as a proud father of two lovely daughters, so I think this is a charity that I happy to support.

Now this terrible child bride business seems to be very prevalent in Islamic countries, or at least in fundamentalist Islamic countries, where the practice is defended on bogus religious and cultural grounds.

But to me it is child abuse and a form or slavery which should be opposed by every civilised country whether it claims to be religious or not - so visit Plan UK and see what you think for yourself.

To my mind it's a very worthy and worthwhile cause.  

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At least one in five adolescent girls around the world is denied an education by the daily realities of poverty, conflict and discrimination. Every day, girls are taken out of school and forced into work, or married off to strangers where they risk isolation and abuse. Missing out on school can mark the end of a girl having any choice over her own future.

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