Conservatives-- A Clear And Present Danger To Women The World Over

Conservative immigrants are not adequately screened. I've been reading a fascinating-- and horrifying-- book by Jordanian journalist and activist Rana Husseini, Murder in the Name Of Honor. The book goes beyond Jordan-- and beyond just the patriarchal practice of "Honor" Killing to the whole panoply of violence against women, basically a more extreme version of what Republican Party War On Women stalwarts, Lou Dobbs and Erick Erickson, have been yammering about this week on GOP propaganda outlets. The conservative practice of taking child brides, which at least isn't about murdering women, is one of the many manifestations of how conservative males try to assert their dominance over women... even in "advanced" countries.

Last week, the Atlantic reported on the rise of child marriages among desperate Syrian refugees. It's gigantic in India, where a 14 year old is legally considered marriage material. And in Uganda, "almost two million minors are forced or lured into alleged marriage." 46% of women under 18 are child brides. It's worse in Niger (75%) and Chad (72%).

Child marriage negatively impacts on the girls and their children and can affect generations ahead of them.

“These children have no say in the marriage, are prone to violence and sexually transmitted infections and other ills,” said Dr. V. Chandra-Mouli from the World Health Organisation.

He further explained that the child brides are cut off from their family and social network which creates a huge health effect on them and then because the girl does not have a say, her children also lack education or are married off at an early age.

Early marriages and the resultant pregnancies are the biggest cause of deaths among 15 to 19 year old girls, accounting for 20% of maternal deaths. Those who survive the pregnancies suffer lasting complications like fistula and disability.

Dr. Mouli said that the parents who marry off these children give several justifications which include poverty, lack of education, lack of laws prohibiting it, social-religious considerations and sexual activity of the child, which should not be used as the excuse. He said that parents simply want to get rid of the girl so that they do not have the burden of looking after her.

This week CNN looked into the child bride problem in Saudi Arabia, where young girls are sold to older men. Saudi Arabia's big reform, recently, was to set 16 as the minimum age for these weddings-- unless the girl's mother approves. Then there's no age limit.

We've covered a lot of the violence against women problems in Jordan already, here,here and here, so let's just move on to some other countries. Can you guess which one this is?

It has been argued that it is unfair that men can currently rely on a 'fit of fury' as a partial justification for killing their unfaithful wives, while women who have been physically abused by their husbands and who have killed them out of the fear of further abuse have been denied any such defense, and have no choice but to face the straightforward charge of murder.

Yes, barbaric Afghanistan enlightened Britain. And when reform groups attempted to change the law, conservative shithead, Nicholas Phillips, Baron Phillips of Worth Matravers, Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, stood up firmly for male ownership rights and the significance of sexual fidelity. OK, England... how about this one, which country? "A rape victim can be prosecuted for adultery if she can't produce four male witnesses to the assault." Iraq-- after the U.S. occupied the place! In Iraq, another war-torn region of the world, women's rights have deteriorated dramatically since the start of the U.S.-led coalition's occupation of the country... There are currently no shelters for women in Baghdad or Basra... When U.S. forces overthrew Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration proclaimed that women's rights would be at the center of its project to make Iraq a democratic model for the rest of the Arab world. But violence against women is rampant, rising every day... Beheadings, rapes, beatings, suicide, genital mutilation, trafficking and child abuse (masquerading as marriage) of girls as young as nine are all on the increase-- and woman who dares to protest will immediately find her life in great peril." That's some model!

In the E.U., there has been a tendency to just consider violence against women in the immigrant community an unpleasant fact of life. It is simply regarded as a "cultural expression, and nothing to get involved in. The specifics of these cases across Europe-- let alone in Kurdistan and Pakistan-- are too horrible and too depressing for me to publish. And there really is only one thing that every single case, across all countries, has in common. The perps are always conservatives. We have enough problems with degenerate conservative American citizens. Remember how almost all of them voted against the Violence Against Women Act earlier this year? Am I urging that immigration officials profile would-be applicants for conservatism and keep them out? Of course I am. Who sane wouldn't?