Guardianship: Child Trafficking and Forced Marriage
When I was in the first grade, I had two nieces who are one and three years younger than I am. Their 24 years old father died in an accident so my 20 years old sister and her children were mourning for him. We spend a lot of time together. The kids can enjoy playing even in a sad time like all Syrian or Yemeni children who play and laugh under the bombing. The death of my sister's husband was the beginning of a new world for me with my nieces.
Once we were playing hide and seek in an alley; I closed my eyes and started counting, but when I opened my eyes, I could not find them. They were lost. We tried to find them for hours until their grandfather (Father of the father) called and said he had taken the children and mentioned if my sister wants to live with her children, she must live with her father-in-law) My father said he is legally right and he is the guardian of the children. As I was crying; I looked at my father’s face surprisingly and repeated his sentence in my mind. The children belong to their grandfather after the death of the father and their mother doesn't have any rights.
What I will say later in this note is about child guardianship laws and links to child trafficking and child Marriage in Iran and most of the Islamic countries.
We see gender inequality around the world, but what multiplies the suffering of Iranian women is systematic and legal inequality. Laws that are passed to limit women more every day. The fact is that the basis of these laws are based on Sharia. In general, Sharia considers men to be the guardians of women and the family, which is mentioned in the Quran “Men are the guardians of women”.
The guardianship of a child, which is the sole responsibility of the father and grandfather, includes a wide range of powers from small issues to big ones while the mother isn’t in charge of any of them at all. Here are some of father’s power in children life:
Managing children's property - A father can sell any property what the mother had bought for her child or open or close his/her bank account and even withdraw from it.
Registering children in school - Some time ago, a woman named Leila said on twitter she wanted to change her son’s school but the headmaster said only a father could do that!
Permission to surgery - If the children needs any kind of surgery, only the father or grandfather can make a decision and if just in case they aren’t present the Prosecutor can give the permission. The mother who gave birth to the child doesn’t have any right to decide.
There are so many other issues from getting a passport and exit permit to leave the country until education rights but I would like specifically talk about Marriage permission. According to the law, the father is the person who can make a decision about his child's marriage even if she is 9 years old! However, please let me define child trafficking in advance then I’ll explain the Child marriage rules in Iran and most of the Islamic and undeveloped countries.
Child trafficking is defined as the “recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt” of a child for exploitation. This definition comes from the United Nations Palermo Protocol, which has been adopted by Sweden and the majority of countries around the world, making it the internationally accepted definition of human trafficking. A child is defined by the Palermo Protocol and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) as any person under the age of 18.
In 2016, the Swedish Migration Agency conducted a minor study among children seeking asylum in 2013-2015 and identified 132 children (97 % girls) who said that they were married. The phenomenon has been linked to forced marriages.
In many countries, laws are passed to prevent and reduce "forced marriage and child marriage", but unfortunately, in Iran and many Islamic countries, religion defends them. In such circumstances, creating any campaign and writing any articles about its harms are against the government and the Sharia, which leads to imprisonment and detention.
In Iran, girls are allowed to marry from the age of 13, and Islamic Juris consults allow the marriage of a child under the age of nine with the consent of the father. So the term of "Child Marriage" is commonly used to refer to girls who are forced to marry adult men due to coercion, tradition, or economic hardship. Child marriage has a negative effect on boys and girls; although it affects girls much more than boys. Poor socioeconomic status, pregnancy, and sexual diseases are very common at the majority of girls who marry at their childhood.
In recent years, many girls from the Middle East have migrated to Europe. Do European governments care about these children as much as they care about education and health for their own citizens? Many of these children marry an older man in their own country without even knowing what marriage is, and sometimes marry with the promise of dolls and sweets. My mother said that at the age of 13, she sat at the wedding table with a doll and a few minutes before her wedding, her mother took her doll and my mother cried. This is an undeniable fact in Muslim countries, but does this story end after emigration?
Do Western countries that have child protection laws prevent child marriage? Or are men allowed to use unequal Islamic laws by the excuses such as human rights, freedom in religion and respect to the cultures?
