Close you eyes for just a moment, and let your mind wonder to a place where it has never once been. What exactly does slavery mean to you? What types of images do you see in your head? Are you seeing men, women, or even children? Are they abused, hurt, or are they forced to live a life long nightmare? Perhaps, you forgot about the 12 countries whom continue to marry off young children at unimaginable ages. Forced marriage is not only considered to be a form of slavery but being at the age where you cannot even chose to give the proper consent for yourself is unfair and cruel. The young girls being married off in these situations are mostly all under the age of twelve and are never older than eighteen. In many cases, the young women being married off become trapped in marriages that become extremely dangerous and volatile. Sexual threats, physical violence, emotional and financial abuse is began to seen as the "norm". In return, it is common for them to become depressed, suicidal, socially isolated, and even show signs of having an eating disorder. The statistics in relation to this issue are heart wrenching and might be a little unsettling for one to hear. 1,166,666 women under the age of eighteen are married off by the age of eighteen. This makes twenty seven marriages every minute, and approximately one marriage every two seconds. One may be left with one lingering question, why does forced marriage happen? The answer to this is the failure in enforcing laws, poverty, religious practices, and even gender inequality. In consequence, these women start lacking the proper education by dropping out of school. As well as start showing signs of poor sexual reproductive health, and many times contract HIV in result. Families that are marrying off their own daughters are not only unbelievable strict but they are set in their beliefts. They will even go to the point of disowning their own child if they do not marry the man that they chose.
Below is a YouTube video, that I would strongly reccomend for you to watch. Four women share their devistating stories, even though they may face rejection from their own communities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP-SYo4U4bE
http://www.plan-uk.org/early-and-forced-marriage/
Very good Blog! I also felt that it wasn’t right for people to have arranged marriages until I met my friend who was born in the Middle East. She was to marry at 18 but chose on her own. She had many people upset at her decision but after years accepted it and loved her husband. 3 years later and with a child she divorced and now is living as a sing parent. She says that she wants her daughter to marry at 18 and already has the person in mind. My friend feels she knows the groom to be very well and also knows his family. Says her daughter will not be like her and chose someone for love when love may fail.
ReplyDeleteI personally would never allow my child to marry without it being her choice but after speaking with my friend I can see both sides. I don’t think this is slavery but it is different way to live life.
Call me crazy, but I watched the videos, all the way through. I've always found enforced marriage quite interesting. I would have liked to have seen WHY this is occurring discussed in your blog. What is behind enforced marriage: tradition, religion, or other? Also, we always tend to connect enforced marriages to more Middle Eastern countries. However, we need to remember that this problem is occurring on our very own nation grounds, right under our noses. Another question, how can you change this problem? Can religion and tradition be changed? Sometimes, sometimes not. What should be changed to end this "slavery"? Very good blog post, Nicolette.
ReplyDeleteIt's crazy how arranged marriages occur. I feel that they could possibly be a good thing even. I mean who better to pick your spouse other than someone who knows you best and someone who knows that person. If these parents actually took the time to teach their children about love, respect etc then I don't think it would be such a bad idea. There is the whole age factor that has a lot to do with it, but back in my grandmothers time they married young anyways. They were just taught respect, responsibility and how to love even at a young age.
ReplyDeleteElduvina Fraga
ReplyDeleteYes, things like sex trafficking, slavery, and many more violations to our human rights would change anyone’s life. It is our reality, though. As people, we sometimes close our eyes to all of those things we don’t like to think as being a part of our society. We can easily be in denial about the existence of abusive behavior against children. Within our own families, we would never accept some of these horrible things in our environment. However, stop for a minute and think about the recent case in which three women were kidnapped by Ariel Castro in Cleveland, Ohio. He hid them for more than three years and committed the most horrible and abusive acts against them. The question here would be, “Did no one in his family know about what was going on his house?” Ariel’s family could feel angry against the public, but not against him, because they were in denial. They may have thought, “We cannot go to the police and press charges against our own relative; regardless of what he may be doing against others.”
Unfortunately, this behavior allows bad people to hurt others. In most cases of abusive behavior, the common victims can be anyone, women, girls, men, or boys. To prevent situations like those, we need to speak up and cooperate with organizations like “Equality Now” to help victims. The most important thing should be how we can help them speak out against all of the things happening in their homes. Sometimes the fear to speak up against an abuser can prevent a victim from looking for a solution. And, when it is a family member, or someone close to us, committing the abuse, then the fear of reporting is even worse.
To conclude, I want to say that we need to open our minds to accept that bad things happen. We need to be aware in every environment we are a part of because we when we come across some kind of abusive behavior, we need to be able to report it.