Sharia Law: 41-Year-Old Man Receives Measly Fine After Marrying 11-Year-Old
If you need more evidence that the fundamentalist Islamic justice system known as Sharia law is incompatible with civilized society, read on.
Last month, a 41-year-old Malaysian man named Che Abdul Karim Che Abdul Hamid took as his bride an 11-year-old girl, The Guardian reported.
Hamid and the young girl were wed at a mosque just over the border in Thailand.
A Sharia court in the northern Malaysian state of Kelantan brought charges against Hamid — but not for marrying a child, which is perfectly legal under the Islamic law.
No, Hamid was charged with polygamy without permission. You see, he already has two other wives, and one of them complained to police about his third.
He also got in hot water for conducting the marriage without the court’s permission.
In the case of the 11 year old child 'bride', the Kelantan Syariah Court has fined the man for 2 Syariah offences – marrying without permission and polygamy without permission.
These two offences are not about him marrying an underage person. There is no such offence in law.
— Syahredzan Johan (@syahredzan) July 9, 2018
On Monday, Hamid was found guilty of violating Sections 19 and 124 of the state’s Islamic family law.
Judge Mohd Surbaineey Hussain could have sentenced him to six months in prison.
Instead, Hamid was hit with a fine of 900 Malaysian ringgit — $224 in U.S. dollars — for each offense.
It’s disturbing to think about a society where the only penalty for taking an 11-year-old girl as your third wife is having to fork over 450 bucks.
Hamid told authorities he had the permission of the girl’s parents to marry her. However, an investigation found that the 11-year-old’s mother “had asked for the marriage to be consummated only when she turned 16, until which time it was agreed she would remain at home,” The Guardian reported.
This little girl is hardly alone. The report said there were at least 15,000 child brides in Malaysia in 2010.
Sadly, it’s far from the worst offender. According to the international group Girls Not Brides, more than 15 million women in India were married before their 18th birthday. Bangladesh ranked second at 4.5 million, followed by Nigeria at 3.6 million.
The countries with the highest rates of child marriage are Niger (76 percent), Central African Republic (68 percent), Chad (67 percent) and Bangladesh (59 percent).
It’s long past time for the world to stop tolerating the horrific practice of grown men marrying little girls, no matter what Sharia law says about it.
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