Robert Harris
01-28-2004, 09:08 AM
Some of the women here have had hard times after the end of a marriage and a divorce. Our laws and their enforcement leave much to be desired in terms of protecting families/children. But compared to much of the Muslim world we have achieved a lot. Interesting BBC story on Morocco today.
Khadija begs for money in the bustling alleys of the ancient walled city of Rabat, Morocco's capital.
"My husband repudiated me when I was three months pregnant," she says.
Under Morocco's old family code Khadija's husband and thousands of other Moroccan men could verbally divorce their wives at any time, and their decision was legally binding.
Khadija was thrown out of her family home.
Living in a shanty town she supports her two children and an ageing father on what she can beg from passers by.
Times are hard and Khadija has had to put her son in an apprenticeship with a tailor. He is just five years old.
From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3435153.stm
Wonderful. Send the 5-year old to work. Barbarous and indecent behavour on the father's part, and apparently legal.
Aside from wondering how a man can behave that way -- it is not just a wife he is dumping into the street, but his own children -- one must wonder about the religeous basis of the laws, and the wise old men who interpret and enforce them.
And Khadija's son, when he gets a little older, probably will be out on the street demonstrating against the evil Western societies for his kmiserable existence, encouraged to do so by the same bearded thugs.
Morocco apparently is in the process of adopting some reforms in family law that may help, but the bearded ones in some other parts of that world seem to be pushing hard for regression back to the good old days, and resisting all change. E.g., Iraq (See http://www.globalaffairs.org/forum/showthread.php?t=19123http://www.globalaffairs.org/forum/showthread.php?t=19123Keep the women chattel, treat the family as a convenience to be discarded when no loonger convenient.
The more one learns about life in the middle East as guided by the mullahs the harder it becomes to take this part of the world seriously as part of the civilized world, doesn't it?
Khadija begs for money in the bustling alleys of the ancient walled city of Rabat, Morocco's capital.
"My husband repudiated me when I was three months pregnant," she says.
Under Morocco's old family code Khadija's husband and thousands of other Moroccan men could verbally divorce their wives at any time, and their decision was legally binding.
Khadija was thrown out of her family home.
Living in a shanty town she supports her two children and an ageing father on what she can beg from passers by.
Times are hard and Khadija has had to put her son in an apprenticeship with a tailor. He is just five years old.
From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3435153.stm
Wonderful. Send the 5-year old to work. Barbarous and indecent behavour on the father's part, and apparently legal.
Aside from wondering how a man can behave that way -- it is not just a wife he is dumping into the street, but his own children -- one must wonder about the religeous basis of the laws, and the wise old men who interpret and enforce them.
And Khadija's son, when he gets a little older, probably will be out on the street demonstrating against the evil Western societies for his kmiserable existence, encouraged to do so by the same bearded thugs.
Morocco apparently is in the process of adopting some reforms in family law that may help, but the bearded ones in some other parts of that world seem to be pushing hard for regression back to the good old days, and resisting all change. E.g., Iraq (See http://www.globalaffairs.org/forum/showthread.php?t=19123http://www.globalaffairs.org/forum/showthread.php?t=19123Keep the women chattel, treat the family as a convenience to be discarded when no loonger convenient.
The more one learns about life in the middle East as guided by the mullahs the harder it becomes to take this part of the world seriously as part of the civilized world, doesn't it?