Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) isn't sweating the mocking his emotional testimony before Rep. Peter King's (R-NY) hearings on Muslim extremism last week generated from the right.

Asked by TPM Wednesday about the drubbing he's received from conservative pundits since he teared up before King's panel, Ellison basically said, what else is new?

"Well, you know, I don't anticipate some people will appreciate everything that I say and stand for," he said. "But I'll say this: American people realize that when we say freedom and justice for all, that means all. You know, Muslims too."

I'm all for that, of course. That's why I oppose Sharia in the U.S., since it would institutionalize oppression of women and non-Muslims. Since Rep. Ellison is all about "freedom and justice for all," I am confident that he is ready to endorse the anti-Sharia initiatives being considered now in various states. I look forward to your statement to that effect, Congressman.

Ellison said it's open season on the right when it comes to Muslims.

"Open season"! Poor choice of words, whether Ellison or the journalistic tool Evan McMorris-Santoro is responsible. One need only look at people like Khalid Aldawsari, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Lubbock, Texas; Muhammad Hussain, the would-be jihad bomber in Baltimore; Mohamed Mohamud, the would-be jihad bomber in Portland; Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood jihad mass-murderer; Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square jihad mass-murderer; Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, the Arkansas military recruiting station jihad murderer; Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be Christmas airplane jihad bomber; and so many other jihad murderers and would-be murderers, and easily conclude that there is open season on non-Muslims. But open season on Muslims? That's just Leftist/Islamic supremacist fantasy.

"Look there is an organized anti-Muslim industry in the United States," he said. "It's Pam Geller, it's Robert Spencer, it's Steve Emerson...it's Frank Gaffney. They're well-known entities."

"They sell books doing this, they tell people they're counter-terrorism experts, and you know," Ellison added. "But what does that have to do with the whole economic discussion we've been having?"

Yeah, let's have that economic discussion. Let's have a discussion about the $13,350 Ellison accepted from the Muslim American Society to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca.

And what is the Muslim American Society? The Muslim Brotherhood. "In recent years, the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews. One of the nation's major Islamic groups, it was incorporated in Illinois in 1993 after a contentious debate among Brotherhood members." -- Chicago Tribune, 2004, via the Muslim Brotherhood's English-language website, Ikhwanweb.

The Muslim Brothers "must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions." -- "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America," by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991.

Imagine if a conservative Congressman had taken a trip that had been paid for by a Christian group that was, according to one of its own documents, dedicated to "eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house" so that Christian law would replace the U.S. Constitution. I expect we would hear more of an outcry than we are hearing about this.

Originally published at FrontPage Magazine.

On February 22, 2011, Jessie Bender, a 13-year-old southern California girl, ran away from home. No, Jessie was not into “sex, drugs, or rock n’ roll.” On the contrary. Jessie was terrified that her American-born mother, Melissa, a convert to Islam, and her mother’s Pakistani boyfriend and acting stepfather Mohammed “Mo” Khan, had decided to send her to Pakistan to be married against her will. Had Jessie gone, her mother and “Mo” would have received $3000.00.

Initially, her mother told police that Jessie had been abducted by a Facebook predator. Melissa, in full hijab, made a tearful plea for the television cameras.  ”If you are holding my daughter, please let her go…Please, I beg you to let my daughter go. She’s just 13 years old.”

This tearful, public, pseudo-honesty reminds me of the Afghan-Canadian Safia family who wept in public, mourning their three dead honor murdered daughters: 13 year-old Geeti, 17 year-old Sahari, and 19-year-old Zainab, and Safia’s first wife, 50-year-old Rona Amir Mohammed. In a bid for sympathy, and to throw the police off their trail, the three murderers shed copious tears, grieving, loudly.

Jessie Bender’s mother went on television and lied about her daughter. Yes, it is true, Jessie had communicated with an adult male on Facebook, but that is not where she ran. Jessie’s uncle had hidden her at an Apple Valley motel. Within a week, it became clear that Jessie’s mother, Melissa, and her pseudo-stepfather “Mo, ” had both been lying. Melissa herself had visited Pakistan and may be seen in a photo smiling broadly, wearing very serious hijab and standing next to a turbaned tribal elder who is holding a gun. Possibly, she is also standing  next to “Mo.”

Patricia “Tissy” Said in Dallas, assisted her Egyptian-born husband Yasir who honor murdered their two daughters, Sarah and Amina, for refusing such arranged marriages.

Like Texas’s “Tissy” Said, California’s Melissa Bender also seems a bit…dim-witted, easy prey for a smart or charming Muslim man who wants (or needs) to bring his Pakistani brother over to America. “Mo’s” brother is, apparently, in some kind of trouble and has to get out of Dodge City pronto.

Yasir Said hatched a similar plan: He wanted to marry his American-born, American-citizen daughters off to hand-picked Egyptian men who would then be able to become American citizens. Whether Said was doing this for money, “honor,” or jihad is unknown. Tunisian-born Samia Labidi, who lives in France, describes such marriages between under-age Western girls and older Muslim foreign men as part of a larger jihadic plan. This may not be true in the California Bender case, but it may be true in other cases.

And, by the way, “Tissy” Said herself married Yasir in Texas when she was only 14 years old. She did so with her father’s permission. I have no doubt that both she and her father believed that Yasir was the Sheikh of Araby and would provide for “Tissy” royally. Instead, he did what many Muslim Arab men do: He sent his wife out to work and lived off her pitiful earnings.

Melissa has six children from six different fathers. She has also lost custody of two children to their maternal grandmother. I do not justify her stupidity and cruelty but it is clear that she may not be in good mental or intellectual health. Nevertheless, her children are at her mercy.

Jessie was found hiding about 30 miles from her home. Since then, Jessie and her siblings have been in child protective custody.

An estranged family member confirms that Jessie indeed “was going to be married off to [the stepfather’s] brother over in Pakistan because he was in some trouble and they wanted to bring him over to the states.  They were going to get paid $3000 for this.”

It is common for Pakistani fathers to sell their young daughters into marriage in order to make a quick buck. Bride prices range from Rs. 80,000 to Rs. 200,000 (1,400-3,500 USD), and younger girls receive higher prices. For example, one ten-year-old Pakistani girl was sold into marriage by her father in order to settle an outstanding debt. According to Amnesty International, a medical examination showed that she had been subjected to rape and torture. I am sure there are thousands of such cases throughout the Islamic world.

All across Europe, government leaders are deciding whether to fine, restrict, or ban the Islamic veil. France’s Prime Minister Sarkozy wants a full ban—one that will also apply to Muslim tourists. Belgium wants one too—although it has been warned that doing so “will violate the rights of those who choose to wear the veil and do nothing to help those who are compelled to do so.” (That vote has not taken place due to the collapse of the government). Recently, a Madrid school expelled a girl for wearing hijab; the government is backing the school, but four of the girl’s classmates have been coming to school wearing hijab “as a sign of support for her.”

What’s the fuss all about? Isn’t the West committed to tolerance—even towards the intolerant? But aren’t we also in favor of women’s rights, human rights, and the right to pursue our individual destinies?

Wherever there are burqas, there are also radical Islamists who believe in polygamy, arranged child marriage, cousin marriage, militant jihad, and in the subordination of Muslim women and infidels. Also, please understand that the full Islamic veil means sensory deprivation, social isolation, and various Vitamin D deficiency diseases for its wearer. And don’t discount the effect the full veil is meant to have on infidels and other naked-faced women (this is how we are described); it is meant to terrify us, like the sight of a severed head on a pole, or of a prisoner publicly chained for years to a stake.

Then, there is always the security aspect: A common thief can hide a gun, a homicide bomber can hide an explosive device under such flowing garments—and “she” can just as easily be a “he.”

Thus, it is no coincidence that the French woman who was just fined for wearing her niqab while driving turns out to be one of four wives all married to the same Algerian-French man, who has fathered twelve children. If not this polygamist then the next polygamist will turn out to have ties to an Islamist group or will be indoctrinating his French citizen children into Islamism. This French polygamist is also a welfare fraud since all four wives collect government subsidies as single mothers. And, no surprise here, our polygamist is also leading the drive to build a mosque.

And, by the way: The veiled women are not only victims. Yes, of course, they are “choosing” not to be honor murdered or rejected by their communities. But, they are also proudly, aggressively, defiantly marking out Islamist territory in infidel countries; the fact that they have been brainwashed or not given a free choice makes no difference. These Veiled Crusaders view themselves as superior to an allegedly (and often truly) “racist” infidel population. They are choosing a glorified group identity as opposed to an unknown, difficult, lonely, or dangerous individual identity. Finally, as I’ve explained in Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman, women are empowered to break the spirits of young girls and female rebels. Even more than men, women are conformists who are supposed to keep other women in line.

I wish to acknowledge the important work being done by “Esther” at her blog Islam in Europe.

An update on this story. "Yemen: Islamic lawmaker decries child marriage ban as part of 'Western agenda'," by Alexandra Sandels for the Los Angeles Times, April 18:

The recent death of 13-year old Yemeni child bride Elham Assi, who reportedly bled to death last week after being tied down and forced to have sex with her 23-year-old husband, has sparked outrage among rights activists in Yemen.

They are now stepping up their lobbying efforts to push for the implementation of a child marriage ban.

But that may prove a daunting challenge since fierce opposition against a ban on child brides still runs high among some religious leaders and conservatives.

Sheik Mohammed Hamzi, an official of the Islamist Yemeni opposition party Islaah and the imam of the Al-Rahman mosque in the Yemeni capital of Sana, is one of those who staunchly opposes a legal ban on child marriage.

Although he emphasizes that a woman should not get married before she is physically and mentally ready and that she herself needs to accept the marriage, he believes a law that prohibits child marriage constitutes a rights violation.

"I am against the child marriage law because it restrains the freedom of others. When a certain age [for marriage] is set, it violates the rights of others. For example, imagine a young man of 13 or 14 years of age who wants to have sex. ... This is a violation of his rights," Sheik Hamzi told The Times in an interview at his Sana home last week. [...]

From this point on in the article, he's "Hazmi."

But Hazmi dismisses claims by rights groups that there is a problem with child marriages in his country. He said the child-bride cases that have been reported in the media were merely isolated incidents.

"Just ask my mother and sisters how many times they've found a little girl getting married at the marriages they've attended," he said. "Not many."

The country's Ministry of Social Affairs, on the contrary, says child marriages are common in Yemen. According to a 2009 report by the ministry, a quarter of all females in Yemen marry before the age of 15.

To Hazmi, however, women's- and children's-rights activists are putting a few isolated cases of child marriage in the spotlight to rally support for the law.

"There is no problem here with child marriage," he said. "These cases of young girls getting married are exceptions. These organizations that are promoting for this law couldn't find any examples except for those of Nujoud and Elham."

Hazmi said the groups that are campaigning for the law were harmful to the country, trying to promote a "Western agenda" in Yemen.

"It's all a Western agenda they are following," he said. "They get paid from the West to make us to believe in Western culture. This is very bad because our culture is different here."

The best that could happen, in his opinion, is that the government shuts them down.

"No one wants to marry these women's-rights activists anyway," he said. "They're just depressed that they are not married and jealous."

Would he allow his own young daughters to be married?

"No," he says and looks at the two as they're scurrying around in the room. "At this age, I don't want them married."

The reporter would do well to check back in a year, and again in five.

An 11-year-old Yemeni girl who was was married to a man in country's Hajja province was hospitalized today with genital injuries, said a human rights group in Sanaa.

It was the second incident involving a child bride in the last week. A 13-year-old girl died after being sexually assaulted by her adult husband. Both girls were married in the country's rural Hajja province.

The 11-year-old girl was married last year only under the condition that the adult husband would wait until she reached puberty to consummate the marriage. He did not wait, nor do many of the men who marry young brides, says Amal Basha, director of the Arabic Sisters Forum.

An estimated 50 percent of women in Yemen are married before age 18, some as young as 8. Less than a week ago the Sana'a-based human rights group reported the death of a 13-year-old bride in the same rural area. The Associated Press reported the girl was allegedly raped, and that her 23-year-old husband is now in police custody.

"She looked like she was butchered," said the girl's mother, Nijma Ahmed. The AP also cited police a report saying the husband forced himself on his young bride, feeling under pressure to prove his manhood.

An average of eight women die each day in Yemen due to child marriage, many of them in childbirth, according to the Arabic Sisters Forum. The group runs a hotline for victims of domestic violence and has been lobbying in support of a minimum marriage age now under consideration by the Yemeni parliament.

Pushing against the proposed law is the strong hand of Islamic conservatives in Yemen. Clerics have declared women like Amal Basha apostates from Islam for opposing child marriage, which they see as divinely ordained. The government, she says, is intimidated by the religious and tribal customs.

"They say this is Islamic...and they declared jihad against... the UN treaty on women's rights," she said.

"They say my campaign is a Western agenda, that it will lead to sex out of wedlock and prostitution," Basha said....

"Dead Yemeni Child Bride Tied Up, Raped, Says Mom," from the Associated Press, April 10 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

SHUEBA, Yemen (AP) -- A 13-year-old Yemeni child bride who bled to death shortly after marriage was tied down and forced to have sex by her husband, according to interviews with the child's mother, police and medical reports.

The girl's mother, Nijma Ahmed, 50, told the Associated Press that before her daughter lost consciousness, she said that her husband had tied her up and forced himself on her. ''She looked like she was butchered,'' she said about her daughter's injuries.

Elham Assi, 13, bled to death hours after she spoke to her mother and just days after she was married to a 23-year-old man. She died on April 2 in the deeply poor Yemeni village of Shueba, some 200 kilometers northwest of the capital. Her husband, Abed al-Hikmi, is in police custody.

The practice of marrying young girls is widespread in Yemen where a quarter of all females marry before the age of 15, according to a 2009 report by the country's Ministry of Social Affairs. Traditional families prefer young brides because they are seen as more obedient and are expected to have more children.

Legislation to ban child brides has been stalled by opposition from religious leaders. There has been no government comment over the case.

The girl -- one of eight siblings -- was pushed into marriage after an agreement between her brother and her future-husband to marry each other's sisters to avoid having to pay expensive bride-prices -- a common arrangement in Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East.

According to police notes from the interrogation of the husband, he was upset because he could not consummate their relationship and felt under pressure to prove his manhood.

Assi's mother said she also tried to persuade her daughter to have sex with her husband so as not to shame the family.

Al-Hikmi took his young bride to a nearby medical clinic, asking a doctor there to administer her tranquilizers so she would not resist his advances. The clinic said it refused.

Al-Hikmi then obtained performance enhancing pills, according to the police interrogation, and that night completed the act while she screamed.

The next day, he returned to the same medical clinic carrying Assi because she could not walk.

''I told him not to go near her for at least ten days,'' said Dr. Fathiya Haidar. She said Assi's vaginal canal was ripped.

A forensic report obtained by the AP showed that Assi's injuries were much more extensive, including extensive tearing around the vagina and rectum, suggesting that there might have been additional intercourse after the clinic visit.

Her mother said she visited Assi later that day, where she found her daughter fading in and out of consciousness.

''She whispered in my ear that he had tied her up and had sex with her violently,'' she said. ''I said to her husband, what have you done, you criminal?''

She said al-Hikmi told her that the young bride was just possessed by spirits and said he would take her to a folk healer to cast them out. Hours later, Assi was dead....

Isn't that ironic? In the West, if you point out that Islam allows for such things as caning, polygamy and child marriage, you are likely to be called "Islamophobic," hateful, bigoted and worse by self-appointed Islamic spokesmen -- witness Tarek Fatah's malicious savaging of Wafa Sultan for pointing out that Muhammad consummated his marriage with Aisha when he was 54 and she was 9. But in Malaysia, apparently, Tarek Fatah and others like him would be regarded as un-Islamic in the eyes of the Malaysian Assembly of Mosque Youths and other groups like it.

"Malaysia women's group sued over 'Islam' in name," by Sean Yoong for The Associated Press, March 22:

Muslim activists filed a lawsuit Monday against a Malaysian women's group, asking it to remove the word "Islam" from its name on the ground that it misleads people to believe it speaks for all Muslims.

The suit against Sisters in Islam, one of the most well-known nongovernment groups in this Muslim-majority country, comes after it angered conservative Muslims by criticizing Islamic Shariah laws that allow the caning of women for offenses such as drinking alcohol.

Note to AP: "conservatives" don't generally favor caning women for drinking alcohol.

Numerous Muslim groups have in recent months accused Sisters in Islam of misinterpreting religious principles, highlighting a divide between Muslims who demand strict enforcement of Islamic morality laws and others who fear religious intolerance is threatening the moderate practice of their religion.

The lawsuit was filed by Malaysian Assembly of Mosque Youths, whose leader, Mohammad Nawar Ariffin, said Sisters in Islam never obtained formal approval for the name with the government's registrar of societies.

"The use of the word 'Islam' in names must be restricted and protected," Mohammad Nawar told The Associated Press. "The so-called Sisters in Islam uses the word to attract attention, but it issues statements that contradict what other Muslims believe. It causes confusion among Muslims who might think that the group represents Islam."...

Hamidah Marican, executive director of Sisters in Islam, declined to comment on the case, saying the group's lawyers need to study the suit before they can issue any statement. However, she defended the group's work as being "driven by the tenets of the Quran and Islam."

Established in 1988, Sisters in Islam has long been the most outspoken advocate of reforms involving Muslim laws that allegedly fail to protect the rights of women, such as regarding polygamy and child marriages. Its official name is SIS Forum (Malaysia), but it uses Sisters in Islam on its Web site and publications....

In any event, keeping the status quo on child marriage laws lets the Sharia-inclined have it both ways: there is a symbolic law on the books for the sake of appearances, but a religious loophole to get around it in practice.

"Malaysian minister rejects child marriage reform," from Agence France-Presse, March 16:

KUALA LUMPUR -- Malaysia's religion minister on Tuesday defended Islamic laws that allow girls under 16 to marry, amid a controversy over two youngsters who were married off to middle-aged men.

The issue has flared in Malaysia after reports that two girls aged 10 and 11 were wed in the conservative northern state of Kelantan last month. They have now been removed from their husbands.

Rights groups have called for the reform of Islamic laws that allow marriage under the age of 16 if religious officials give their consent. Sharia law runs in parallel with civil law in multi-ethnic Malaysia.

"There is no need to amend the law," Jamil Khir Baharom, a cabinet minister in charge of religious affairs, told reporters.

"The law already exists... marrying someone aged 16 and below requires the consent of the court. The court does not simply grant the consent," he said.

"Maturity is a subjective question. It depends on the development of the person. Maturity is not based on age solely."

But 11 years old is 11 years old.

Pressure group Sisters in Islam has called for an end to child marriages, saying the practice was "unacceptable" but continued in Malaysia because of a "belief that Muslim girls can be married off once they reach puberty".

"The minimum age of marriage for Muslim girls must be raised to 18 to be in compliance with the Child Act which defines children as those below the age of 18," it said in a statement.

Other citizens in the multicultural country -- where the population is dominated by Muslim Malays -- are not permitted to marry before the age of 18.

Malaysian authorities are investigating the case of the two girls in Kelantan, both linked to a man who is accused of leading an Islamic cult.

He is accused of marrying the 11-year-old girl and giving away his 10-year-old daughter to a family friend.

Sharia court officials told the New Straits Times Tuesday the 11-year-old's marriage was not approved in court.

But if it had been, a grown man's marriage to an eleven-year-old could have been quite alright under the law.

The girl was found outside a mosque in the nation's capital over the weekend and is now being treated in hospital.

Women, family and community development minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil has spoken out against the practice.

"A child of that age does not have the choice or capacity to give her full consent and, as such, child marriage is viewed within the context of force and coercion," she said in a statement to AFP.

This is Muhammad's example. It will be essentially impossible to keep Muslim men from emulating his example as long as he is held up as the supreme model for conduct (cf. Qur'an 33:21).

Sharia Alert from the Kingdom of the Two Holy Places: "Child marriage still an issue in Saudi Arabia," by Joel Brinkley for the San Francisco Chronicle, March 13:

Saudi Arabia has a serious child-marriage problem.

It's emblematic of the nation's struggle between modernity and traditional Islam. But the lives of thousands of little girls are being destroyed as the Saudi government ponderously debates a solution.

Child marriage has been acceptable, even encouraged, in many Islamic states since the religion was born. After all, among the prophet Muhammad's dozen wives was Aisha, who is believed to have been 6 or 7 years old when the two were married. But in Saudi Arabia, at least, the practice slammed headlong into modern values last spring, when a Saudi court refused to nullify the marriage of an 8-year-old girl from Unaiza to a man in his late 50s.

Over the past few years, long-standing social practices in Saudi Arabia have been thrown into the glare of world opinion, embarrassing the state and forcing at least cosmetic changes.

In 2006, for example, a judge sentenced a young woman to 200 lashes and several months in prison for being alone in a car with a man she was not related to, where they were attacked and she was raped. Opprobrium from around the world rained down on Riyadh. President George W. Bush asked: "What happens if this happens to my daughter? I'd be angry at a state that does not support the victim." King Abdullah commuted the sentence.

In 2008, one of the nation's most senior religious authorities directed that two reporters for a mainstream Saudi newspaper be executed for publishing stories suggesting that religions other than Islam are worthy of respect. Once again, the cleric's remark spawned international outrage, and the cleric's order was ignored. Then came last spring's court ruling on that 8-year-old wife....

Saudi Arabia is hardly the only state facing this problem. Last year, Turkey made it legal for 12-year-olds to marry, if their parents agree. The Turkish Statistical Institute estimates that one-third of the state's brides are under 18. In Yemen and Bangladesh, even among some sects in Burma, child marriage is commonplace. The victims, in those places and elsewhere: little girls who are forced into wasted, often miserable, lives....

"Narrated 'Aisha: the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death)" (Sahih Bukhari 7.62.64).

"Muslim child brides on rise," by Tom Godfrey for the Toronto Sun, March 12:

"Federal immigration officials say there's little they can do to stop "child brides" from being sponsored into Canada by much older husbands who wed them in arranged marriages abroad.

Top immigration officials in Canada and Pakistan say all they can do is reject the sponsorships of husbands trying to bring their child-brides to Canada. The men have to reapply when the bride turns 16. The marriages are permitted under Sharia Law.

Muslim men, who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents return to their homeland to wed a "child bride" in an arranged marriage in which a dowry is given to the girl's parents. Officials said some of the brides can be 14 years old or younger and are "forced" to marry. The practice occurs in a host of countries including: Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Lebanon.

Not valid in Canada

Canadian visa officer Steve Bulmer said in classified documents he refused to allow one Pakistani man to sponsor his 15-year-old bride in August 2009.

"I can find no section (of law) that states the marriage is 'invalid' or 'void," Bulmer wrote in e-mails obtained by lawyer Richard Kurland under Access of Information. "I am afraid the age does not invalidate the marriage even if it is illegal to marry."

Abdul Hameed, of the Canadian embassy in Islamabad, said child marriages are not valid in Canada.

"A child marriage is punishable but it does not render the marriage invalid," Hameed said. "We are refusing such application on grounds the marriage will not be valid as per Canadian laws."

William Hawke, of immigration's Permanent Resident Unit, said the young brides won't be allowed in Canada.

"Sponsorship applications submitted for a spouse under 16 will be refused," he said. "

It’s fair to say that Nicholas Kristoff isn’t anyone’s idea of a conservative, but his excellent column today picks up on a theme that incensed some on the Left when it was earlier explored by Middle East scholar Martin Kramer (I wrote about that controversy yesterday).

Kristoff’s column is actually about the moving plight of a 12-year old Yemeni girl, Nujood Ali (pictured above), who at the age of 10 was forced into a marriage with a 30-something man who violated and abused her. Against all odds, she became the rare case of a Muslim child bride successfully winning a divorce from her husband. That story is told in her internationally selling book, bracingly titled I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced. Nujood’s story is compelling on its own terms, but Kristoff also makes a larger point. It’s no coincidence, he argues, that Yemen is home to child marriage and a burgeoning hotspot for al-Qaeda and affiliated jihadists.

There are a couple of reasons countries that marginalize women often end up unstable.

First, those countries usually have very high birth rates, and that means a youth bulge in the population. One of the factors that most correlates to social conflict is the proportion of young men ages 15 to 24.

Second, those countries also tend to practice polygamy and have higher death rates for girls. That means fewer marriageable women — and more frustrated bachelors to be recruited by extremists.

This more or less the same point Kramer made about radicalism in Palestinian society, which he suggested was fueled by the overabundance of economically maladjusted young men of fighting age, though I don’t expect to see Kristoff denounced as a racist and supporter of genocide for echoing the point. Of course, Kristoff might have added another element that would seem to connect the phenomena of child brides and jihadist terrorism – a certain religion with deep roots in the region comes to mind — but insofar as he’s used his prominent piece of journalistic real-estate to tell young Nujood’s story, the omission may be overlooked.

"The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)." -- Bukhari 7.62.88

It seems likely that this is the same case as the one we reported about here, although it could conceivably be a similar but different case of child marriage. "Saudi activists outraged as man marries 11 yr old," from Al-Arabiya, January 17 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

DUBAI (Al Arabiya) News of a Saudi octogenarian marrying an eleven-year-old girl has outraged human rights activists amid calls on the government to regulate the marriage of underage girls, local media reported Saturday.

The Saudi National Human Rights Commission formed a committee to investigate the marriage, which activists consider a flagrant violation of human and children rights, the Saudi newspaper al-Riyadh said.

The marriage registrar, who was widely criticized since he agreed to seal the marriage contract knowing the girl's age, absolved himself of any blame.

"There is no law that prohibits the marriage of a girl under 18," he told the paper. "Plus, I summoned the girl and she declared her consent and signed the contract."...

The father, who took 85,000 riyals (more than $22,000) in dowry, defended his decision to marry off his 11-year-old daughter even though his wife vehemently objected.

"I don't care about her age," he told the paper. "Her health and her body build make her fit for marriage. I also don't care what her mother thinks."

Of course not. Why should he?

The father added that marriage at such an early age has been a custom in the Saudi society for a very long time and that he saw no reason why it should be a problem now.

"This is a very old custom and there is nothing wrong with it whether religiously or socially."...

As for the bride, she just called for help as she burst into tears.

"Save me. I don't want him," she cried.

It is heartbreaking, even as it is unsurprising.  In Britain, the authorities are now reporting the forced marriage of girls as young as nine years old on British soil.  We are not talking about one case, but several, which take place under official protection.  We are not speaking, then, about parents or “husbands” who are being charged with a criminal offense.  The situation, in other words, is completely unacceptable and makes clear that we have a crying need for a new approach to these matters.  Government must put its foot down – and powerfully so – so that there will be no doubt as to the way in which such grotesque crimes will be addressed.

First, when I say that the marriage of nine-year-old girls in today’s Britain (and the rest of the EU, for that matter) is unsurprising, my statement is based on my own 17 years of experience in the field of immigration: forms of assault based on tradition and religion – including child marriage, forced marriage, genital mutilation, so-called honor-related offenses such as rape and murder – have become established here as a result of immigration, mostly from Muslim countries.  Instances of these offenses have been documented in countries such as Norway (where, to be sure, there have been no recorded cases of marriage to girls as young as nine, but where the marriage of an 11-year-old came to light in a TV documentary that I worked on as journalist; such cases have also been known in Sweden). The only phenomenon that has not been documented in Norway thus far is forced eating by girls before they are to be married off.  I was told about this practice by feminists in Paris in 2003, and the phenomenon had been imported into France by immigrants, mostly from Mali.  Girls are locked up and fed like geese before being married, because in their culture being fat is considered beautiful.

This being said, the news from Britain, which has been reported in the Times, deserves widespread attention.  Because the authorities are obviously aware of very serious information about actual children who are supposedly under the protection of those very same authorities.  In other words, Britain’s Ministry of Justice, if the Times is to be believed, knows who these children’s parents are, parents who have attempted to arrange for the rape of their own children.  For this is what we are talking about here: the deprival of children’s freedom, plus countless years of repeated rape.  Such phenomena must force authorities to sit down with a cool head and a warm heart and ask themselves: who are we, and where are we going?  What are we doing to ourselves as a nation, to our heritage, to our culture, to our future?  According to the Times, however, British authorities are not doing anything of the kind.  Here comes the proposed initiative, and before you read this sentence you had better take a deep breath.  The Ministry of Justice says that the children’s parents are receiving help from the authorities “to solve the problem.”

I must admit that the principal methods being used in such cases in Norway and in Europe generally – namely, information and dialogue – no longer hold a particularly cherished place in my heart.  In my view, the methods must be appropriate to the crime.  By far the majority of parents in Europe understand that marriage to children is not “good”; it is precisely for this reason that such weddings do not take place in display windows. The same goes for the husbands with which these children are compelled to tie the knot – and by whom they are raped.  As a consequence of the very high levels of immigration from majority-Muslim countries to Europe, we have seen the establishment in European cities of more or less closed enclaves which live according to the norms and values of the residents’ countries of origin. These enclaves, as a rule, have turned their backs on the countries of which their residents are citizens; you might say that they close their blinds.  My view is that the current situation calls for stronger measures.  Because we are entirely behind the times.

The political establishment has allowed things to go too far.  What is happening within extended families and within these immigrant communities is out of control, and the victims of this state of affairs are the most vulnerable people of all.  If one is to have any hope whatsoever of regaining control of the problem, it must be answered back with firm and uncompromising demands and measures: in cases of child marriage, first with a long prison term and then, most important, after the prison term has been served, with expulsion from the country.

I mean this very seriously: if we do not begin to make use of such methods immediately in serious cases such as child marriage, genital mutilation, the dumping of children, so-called honor killing and honor rapes, then we will simply continue to be tilting at windmills for the rest of this century.  These grotesque practices will not peter out over time – as our leading politicians quite seriously believed was the case, in the last decade, with both genital mutilation and forced marriage.  (I could provide the names of actual politicians with whom I have discussed this, but these have been conversations in closed rooms which one does not write about if one hopes to maintain their trust.  I can, however, say this: that they believed that the problem would disappear in the generation of immigrants’ children, their reasoning being that this ”second generation” was born here and would therefore behave like other Norwegians.)

Allow me to give a specific example from a criminal case in Norway that is currently under litigation.  In August 2005, Human Rights Service reported to the police a couple whom we suspected, with good reason, that four of their then six daughters had been genitally mutilated.  All of the children had been born in Norway (meaning that they had not been genitally mutilated as children before immigrating to Norway, which is not a crime), and the four oldest, who were then aged 5 to 11, were sent to one of the parents’ three exquisite properties in Gambia “to learn about their parents’ culture and religion,” as they so nicely put it.  When I visited the girls at their parents’ residence, they had already been there for two years, under the “care” of their father’s second wife (he now has three wives).  The girls were not only emotionally mistreated by  this woman; an adult individual told me that they had also been genitally mutilated in the jungle in the Gambian interior shortly after their arrival in 2003. They were to be “disciplined,” as this source put it, and the girls were “totally disciplined,” according to the source, when they were returned to wife #2 a week after their mutilation.

After we filed our report in 2005, the police in Norway worked intensely – and the case went entirely up to the top prosecutorial levels in both Norway and Gambia – to get the four little Norwegian citizens back to Norway.  Now we are writing in 2010, and the girls are still ”imprisoned” in Gambia, while their parents live freely – and supported by the government – in Norway.  In short, the police have made several unsuccessful efforts to persuade the courts to allow them to hold on to the parents’ passports while their case is being investigated, so that they, for example, would not be able to travel to Gambia (where the oldest girl, age 15, is waiting for her parents to come and marry her off to a cousin, according to sources in Gambia).

In 2008, Norwegian authorities decided to investigate the parents’ two youngest daughters, who lived with their parents here in Norway.  The three-year-old girl was not genitally mutilated, but the five-year-old was.  (The latter had also been in Gambia, while the former had not.)  The father was taken into pretrial custody (a historic imprisonment in Norway), while the mother escaped punishment on the grounds that she was once again pregnant.  After a few weeks, the father was a free man again, but has still refused to bring his daughters back to Norway.  So far he has not been punished.

What do you think would have happened in this case if the father’s citizenship could have been revoked?  The case would most likely never have been a case at all.  The parents would never have played Russian roulette with what appears to be the only thing they love, their Norwegian citizenship and the financial bounty it affords.  For that’s all that Norwegian citizenship means to parents like this: money.  In their minds and hearts, they are still back in Gambia.

If someone now comes along waving international human-rights conventions in defense of such parents, I can reply with the same conventions, for example the convention on children’s right to live with their parents, and as long as the parents deny their children this right, Norway can ensure that the children are given this right by sending their parents back to Gambia. Also, if we allow us to use our critical common sense, what matters more: an adult’s right to retain a citizenship he has acquired in his adulthood when in fact he could just as easily live in his country of origin, or a child’s right to be protected from ritual mutilation, and then from forced marriage with rape to follow – not to mention right to be brought up with the care and love he or she deserves?

We have seen the development in Europe through the 1990s and up to the present time, and it can no longer be denied: larger and larger groups from the Muslim world are living in self-imposed isolation and practicing criminal traditions that negatively affect the health of children, young people, and women.  No one can answer the question of how many of these practices have become more common, precisely because they take place “in the dark, on the inside.”

I believe that the practices have increased in frequency and will continue to do so in line with the rate of immigration, the number of Muslims living in Europe, and the resultant increase in the isolation of these minorities.  In any event, we cannot “sit and wait for better times” – because this is about the destruction of human life, and the sustainability of our welfare state.  Simply the fact that women’s rights are now going in reverse (see also Aftenposten’s report on the Muslim moral police who operate in the Oslo neighborhood of Gronland, and who among other things deprive women and gays of their freedom) is completely intolerable.

To sum up, I think that it is alarming that we should be so extremely naive as to believe that the conditions will suddenly become so much better in this decade.  We need for the police to take an entirely different approach.  We need to speak and act in such a way that no one can misunderstand that things have crossed the limits of patience.  A society based on humanism cannot live with such conditions.  It is, after all, about helpless and defenseless children and teenagers, and marginalized women.

My last word on these matters, then, is this: the ideas I am presenting here are about ten years ahead of their time. Still, I am quite certain that it is only a matter of time before citizenship will not be so sacred anymore as to be untouchable.

Translated from the Norwegian by Bruce Bawer

Despite the nature of the crime, the light sentences issued in response demonstrate a lack of seriousness in making clear that British law remains the law of the land -- especially for the sake of the most vulnerable members of society, like the pre-teen girl in this case. "Man urged son to rape cousin, 12," from BBC News, December 22 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The 54-year-old organised a sham Muslim ceremony between his son, then 16, and the girl at his home in Woolwich, south-east London, in March last year.

At Wood Green Crown Court the boy got an 18-month supervision order for rape.

The fathers of the boy and girl were both jailed for three years for inciting a child to engage in sexual activity following an illegal marriage.

The boy's mother, 54, was given a 12-month jail term, suspended for two years, for the same offence.

She was also ordered to do 200 hours of community service.

The case came to light when the mother of the girl, who objected to the arranged "marriage", told police about it.

Scotland Yard child abuse detectives then discovered several relatives of the boy had urged him to rape his cousin.

In a statement, the girl's mother said: "What happened to my daughter was a nightmare. These convictions will help us move on."

Speaking after the case, Det Insp Noel McHugh, who led the investigation, called it a "really awful crime".

He said: "This has been an exceptionally challenging investigation and we are grateful to all those who assisted with the case and ensured the convictions.

"The offences are incomprehensible and the victim is a truly brave girl who suffered at the hands of those who should have offered her protection."...

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Lucy Mashua, the Global Ambassador for fighting FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) and standing up for Women’s Rights.

FP: Lucy Mashua, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.

Tell us about your background and your own personal story.

Mashua: I was born 30 years ago in a small village in southern Kenya in Rift valley province. I come from the Maasai tribe, which is known for its cultural wearing of beads, red ochre and wraps. We are nomadic people and move with our animals from one place to another in search of pastures, as it’s a semi arid area. We have three major groups in Africa: Bantu, Cushites and Nilots.

My tribe falls into the Nilots group and the tribe from which Obama’s father comes from, Luo. We migrated from Egypt in 16 AD, named after the river Nile and most of us are black Jews, but practicing Christianity. I am a Christian.

I love my tribe so much that I want them to treat women and children right by ending FGM and early child marriage. Women and girls are not men’s properties. It is our God- given right not to be mutilated and married off at a tender age. I am the first born of a family of six and underwent FGM at the age of 9 one early morning with a group of other girls. Vaginal genocide was committed on us.

And now here I am living to tell and be a voice for the voiceless.

FP: Why does your tribe practise FGM? What is its philosophy? And why does it also engage in child marriage?

Mashua: My tribe practices FGM because they are ignorant and brainwashed since the days of Pharaoh in Egypt as they migrated to East Africa with this tradition. The philosophy is that women will be more tame and controllable. When a woman is made to feel like she is an object and not 100% human, she will fall for it. They become puppets and not valued, but it didn’t work with me.

They also engage in early childhood marriage to control and tame women because if you are married off at 12, by the time you are 18 you are just worn out and you will never see the need to explore life. The younger the girls are, the easier it is to control and manipulate them. It’s also about wealth. The more wives and cattle you have, the wealthier you are and you have more property.

FP: I am sorry to ask, but can you kindly share with us the horrible experience you suffered of FGM? Who did this to you? What were the consequences? How did you cope with it?

Mashua: One chilly morning in a group of 29 girls, we were mutilated. I was tied with a rope because I was screaming and begging them to stop. Some girls were considered brave for not crying aloud. But I know their heart cried out loud. I could hear their cry and still do.

It is so hard for me to talk about this. It’s so fresh. I am still so traumatized. They used the same knife on us, not caring about any infections. These are tradition mutilators and midwives that perform this savagery. My mom could not watch this. Up to now, I am scared of any human blood. I scream when I accidentally cut myself. A few days ago I passed out when I cut my finger and I hurt my back as I live by myself. No one could help me.

I have nightmares. I have never coped. I have very painful PMS. I have extra glands growing so I need surgery. I have scar tissues. That’s why my vagina muscles hurt. I will live with this for the rest of my life. I will never cope but one thing for sure I will never stop voicing out against FGM.

One day I will reach the World Court and criminalize globally FGM. I swear I am going to reach there. I am now building a very big network of very committed people. I aspire even to be a human rights movie documentary producer. I am going to get words out there and catch the attention of all kinds of good people. I will kick FGM ass out of this planet. And that makes me smile.

FP: I am sorry that I asked you to talk about this horrible monstrosity that was committed against you. Thank you for sharing it with us. I speak on behalf of Fronpagemag.com to say that our heart is with you and all the victims. We feel your pain and stand beside you in this battle to stop this violence against little girls and women.

You have suffered some persecution and terrible ordeals because of your fight against FGM while you were in Africa. Tell us what happened to you.

Mashua: First I was rejected by my own society, relatives and friends because of my strong uncompromised belief that women are human too and that no one should take a razor, knife or sharp glass to cut off our clitoris.

No man owns a woman and no one has the right to beat or hit a woman. I have watched my mom suffer at the hands of men and I had enough and began my rebellion by not obeying what men wanted from me and I knew then I have begun a war.

As young as 6 years old I would open my mouth and shout to the top of my voice in a gathering to speak my mind out. Of course I would get beatings but I grew immune. I could not cry anymore from the beatings but I cry out when my friends and relatives undergo FGM.

My fight against FGM has landed me in jail as a protester. I have suffered beatings, rejection, sexual abuse, separation from my babies. I have been tortured physically, sexually and emotionally. I have physical scars all over my body. Up to this time there are times my mind goes back and it’s like a horror movie. I suffered a great deal but I thank God almighty for America.

FP: What efforts are you now making to stop FGM? What resistance are you confronting?

Mashua: Since the day I stepped foot in the United States, I have been leading a fight against FGM. I have received help from my attorneys Roy Petty and Daniel Stewart, Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson and many organizations, such as the Center for Survivors of Torture and Human rights Initiatives.

Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson held my hand and stood by me. Annually I am a guest speaker to her World of Peace Women Conference. She even introduced me to President Obama back in 2007. He recognized my efforts on human rights issues and said he was proud of me in a letter he wrote to me.

The Congresswoman is a great friend. She helps me in many big ways that you cannot imagine and they are very personal. She went ahead and introduced me to my adopted brother J. Kendel Johnson, who has always been there for me, even in my hospital bed during my reconstructive surgery. He is an angel.

Parkland hospital surgeons saved my life and reduced my pain and body struggle by 60%. Many individuals groups supported me and still support me with my campaign here in the United States.

I began my campaign officially in 1999 in Kenya by holding demonstrations, speaking in seminars, radio and television programmes and in other East and Central Africans countries. I have currently launched a world wide campaign to stop FGM in Europe.  It’s not always been easy. First, resistance from my own people, then resistance from traditional mutilators who say that I am trying to destroy their only means of income.

FP: How about the Left? They pretend they are for human rights?

Mashua: Leftists pay lip service to women’s rights, but they are full of empty words. They derive fame and recognition from the pain and suffering of women. They only talk and travel just to show off; they do nothing to help or join in the fight against FGM.

FP: Expand for us on why leftist feminists and the Left in general abandons the girls who are the victims of FGM, especially those under Islam? They simply cannot bring themselves to criticize adversarial cultures and religions right?

Mashua: It’s simple: they don’t care about the harmful cultures. All they care about is opening their mouth or scribbling some words online or on paper to act as if they care and so far they have scooped several Grammies for best actors.

They bow down and worship the women haters to achieve favors and recognition. It’s high time we smoke these hypocrites out. I cannot stand them anymore I even don’t want their money to support my campaign because it’s blood money and evil-haunted money.

I would rather crawl and beg in the streets to sustain my campaign instead of working with such people.

The leading member of the Women Development Organization in Kenya, the vice chair, said this about FGM: “Unlike other gender issues, such as access to education, FGM is viewed as cultural practice, which, if threatened, endangers the cohesion of an entire community.” Her name is Rukia Subow and she is a supporter of the mutilators and of mutilation. She is the vice chair of Maendeleo ya Wanawake Organization–or MYWO–a leading Kenyan women’s rights group based in Nairobi. She writes: “FGM is considered most significant rite of passage to adulthood, enhancing tribal cohesion, providing girls with important recognition from peers.”

This is an organisation that is funded and works with the leftists in the West. I went to court to sue this organisation and its leadership with other 10 women and we lost and ended up in jail. We were beaten up and threatened just because we wanted them to womanup.

Another example is Ricken Patel of AVAAZ who grew up in Kenya. He told me that FGM is not an important issue and cannot beat climate change and his organisation will not help us to protect girls from FGM. Believe me, religion is a playing card here because this pretender doesn’t want to step on the toes of religion leaders and haters of women. Then a few days later he put a cause on Facebook that he cares about sex slavery. I told him these girls run away from their home to escape the crude culture of mutilation and child brides and end up in the streets where they are captured by educated heartless people for sex slavery and it’s so painful because it happened to someone very dear to me. She disappeared for years. She was only 11

In the Washington Post, Secretary Clinton wrote a column “Fighting Modern Slavery” lamenting worldwide sex trafficking. The root causes of sex trafficking are poverty, illiteracy, and powerlessness. Gender inequality is the basis for all three. I am hoping to represent the Department of State in a two week conference next year in Sierra Leone.

FP: You come from a tribe that is made of up Christians, and yet there was FGM. This is strange as Christianity would be completely against this kind of thing. It is in Islam where this is most occurring and Islamic theology sanctions it. Tell us also about your experience with Islam and Muslims in terms of FGM today.

Mashua: Yes my tribe is Christian and also full of traditional believers. I don’t know why they practice it because there is no single Bible verse that says to mutilate women. As I said earlier, it’s a way of controlling women. It has nothing to do with Christianity and they do not point to Christianity. They carried this tradition from Egypt in 16 AD (days of Pharoh). As Nilots, we immigrated to East Africa.

My experience with Islam on FGM is very sad. As you correctly point out, a majority of people who practice FGM on women are of the Islamic faith and in the Muslim countries that I have visited their women and children have encountered the worst form of it, and many reconstructive surgeons can testify to this. It is a form of control and manipulation in the name of religion.

The good news is that there many Muslims who are rising to end any form of torture against women.

FP: That is great but the problem is that Muslims point to traditional Islamic teachings that sanction FGM. This is the way they keep it in placed. That is why when Egypt, for example, banned FGM in 1996, an Egyptian court overturned the ban in July 1997 after Islamic clerics went on a rampage to bring it back, pointing to Islamic teachings and ideology. Islamic tradition, for instance, records the Prophet Muhammad emphasizing that circumcising girls is “a preservation of honor for women.” A legal manual endorsed by Al-Azhar University of Cairo, which is the oldest and most prestigious university in the Islamic world, states that circumcision is obligatory for both boys and girls.

The sexual mutilation of girls is in the interests of those who control the structure of Islamic gender apartheid. Keeping FGM legitimized and institutionalized is one of the most effective means that Islamic gender apartheid keeps women subjugated and caged.

Yes, let’s hope that Muslim reformers can be empowered to fight FGM, but in order to do so they have to confront the misogyny and demonization of female sexuality that is embedded in Islamic theology.

So where does your battle stand now as we speak?

Mashua: We all read the harmful Muslim remarks on Beyonce after she said she was going to perform in Egypt:

“Beyonce, queen of the crusader whores and puppet of the Zionist entertainment complex, plans to bring her filthy sex act to the heart of the Muslim world with a concert in Cairo. Not since al-Malik al-Adil Nur ad-Din Abu al-Qasim Mahmud Ibn ‘Imad ad-Din Zangi fought the crusaders in Damascus has the Muslim world faced such a threat.”

“If Beyonce is allowed to go ahead with her insolent sex party, all of our daughters risk growing up whores. Soon, they will dare to show their ankles in a public setting, or sit in a room with a grown man who is not an immediate family member.”

“If Beyonce insists on traveling to Egypt, she must be met with fierce resistance. She should be arrested and made to have a female circumcision in order to correct her wicked urges. If she objects, she must be stoned to death. Only then can our daughters be safe from Western vice and debauchery.”

Wow, tell me what kind of religion it is that hates women so much to the core? It’s simple: women are not allowed to enjoy sex or laughter or just the gift of life because of these Islamic attitudes and teachings. Look what happened at the Fort Hood shooting. The authorities knew about Nidal Hasan’s jihadist views but they were afraid to report him because of political correctness. And the fear of not taking action cost us our blood and lives. Believe me there are so many of the major Hasans out there. It’s high time we call a spade a spade.

Five hundred thousand women are still dying in childbirth every year and the promise of universal access to reproductive health and family planning made at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt in 1994 has been more honored in the breach than in the implementation. A.majority of women’s deaths in these cases are caused by early women rights violations (i.e. FGM, child brides, etc.)

On Common Ground must expand the discussion to the entire planet. What we do here in this country has an effect on the entire world’s view of women, on their status, on their role in human affairs. America, we are the hope of the world. Let’s stand together and lets not be scared of the haters and leftists.

FP: Thank you Lucy Mashua. Final words?

Mashua: When the world takes care of women, women take care of the world. What does taking care of women mean? It means that people rejoice equally at the birth of a girl or a boy. Every single human being ever born has come from the womb of a woman. Women risk their very lives to ensure the propagation of the species.  If women lack health and education and choices in their lives, humanity suffers. If women disappear, humanity disappears. It is really that simple. So take care of women.

FP: Lucy Mashua, you are an inspiration to us all. We encourage all of our readers to help join the fight against FGM.

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[To get the whole story on why the Left won't lift a finger against Female Genital Mutilation and Islamic Gender Apartheid, read Jamie Glazov’s new book, United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror.]