Migrant crisis: Dutch alarm over child brides from Syria

[Blue_Tires]

Source: BBC

A 14-year-old girl has gone missing from a Dutch asylum centre. Police say Fatema Alkasem was nine months pregnant and may be in need of medical care.

She is also thought to be a "child bride", and her case has highlighted the problem that the Netherlands faces in providing asylum for girls who married in Syria but are below the Dutch age of consent.

The government in The Hague is rushing to close a loophole in the asylum law which has so far allowed child brides to be reunited with their husbands in the Netherlands. The practice has inflamed debate about how the Netherlands is responding to the refugee crisis, with some arguing it is condoning paedophilia.

As many as 20 girls between the ages of 13 and 15 have been given legal permission to join their older partners at Dutch asylum centres, according to regional news channel RTV-Noord. The figures were reportedly obtained from a leaked immigration service document.

Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34573825

[AngryAmish]

1. What are the Dutch law on cousin marriage?

Nearly a majority of Middle Easterners marry their first or second cousin.

[Blue_Tires]

2. Not sure...

Like the story said, Dutch law used to be pretty loose -- They generally honored any marriage as long as it was legal and official in the country of origin...

But now, who knows?

[Little Tich]

3. You sound like an Islamophobe. n/t

[AngryAmish]

4. Nothing to do with Islam

Christian, Jewish, Islamic etc all practice widespread cousin marriage in the Middle East. Endemic cultural practice, as it is in most of the world.

In the West it is culturally taboo and with a modern insight into genetics, outbreeding seems like a good udea. The most successful tribe in Nigeria, the Igbo, is also the only tribe with strong inbreeding taboo.

I think inbreeding is a bad idea and should be banned. I guess I am some sort of phobe. Maybe a cousin-fucking-aphobe.

[Sunlei]

7. I think the 'wonder of DNA tests' will help with the inbreeding problems many

cultures, (including Americans) have.

[AngryAmish]

13. It has helped a lot with Hasidic Jews

No cite at hand, but a couple who are going to be married get dna tested. A respected rabbi looks at the results and discourages the marriage. Hasidic Jews, being so inbred, have a lot of genetic diseases.

[snooper2]

5. bringing facts to light doesn't make somebody phobic LOL

learn definitions

[oberliner]

9. Not even remotely

And you should maybe ask yourself why you would jump to such a conclusion.

A 2009 study found that many Arab countries display some of the highest rates of consanguineous marriages in the world, and that first cousin marriages which may reach 25-30% of all marriages. In Qatar, Yemen, and UAE, consanguinity rates are increasing in the current generation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage#Middle_East

[riderinthestorm]

10. Islamophobe, bigot, racist - way over-used (and abused) here on DU

[Little Tich]

11. Perhaps it's because Islamophobes are most prone to bring up this kind of slander. n/t

[oberliner]

15. What slander?

What are you talking about?

[Little Tich]

32. Child brides, cousin marriage, the Middle East...

I'm sure that you're not so naive that you can't connect the dots...

[Yo_Mama]

22. Governments in the ME are trying to discourage this due to the high rate of genetic/congenital probs

So I wouldn't call this Islamophobic. Facts are facts.

Cultural practices that have evolved in some areas can be medically inadvisable, such as prion diseases passed from one generation to another due to a cultural tradition of eating your elders.

Continually marrying your cousins does result in noticeably higher rates of birth defects/genetic diseases. It's a biological thing rather than a phobia thing.

[Lychee2]

17. That explains a lot of things.

Inbreeding. Not good. Offspring weird.

[Xithras]

20. Cousin marriage is legal pretty much everywhere on the planet.

Only the United States, China, Bulgaria, Korea, the Phillipines and Serbia ban it. And even in the United States, it's perfectly legal in many states. The 8 American states that criminalize cousin marriage are the only places on the planet where it's actually a criminal offense to marry your cousin...the rest of the world, and the rest of the states that ban it, simply refuse to recognize the marriages validity.

Medically, there's nothing really wrong with cousins getting married, and it's been considered normal throughout most of human history (because humans lived in fairly small groups until relatively recently, it was pretty much required to survive). The rate of birth defects among the offspring of cousin-parents is only nominally higher than the rate among children whose parents were unrelated. The laws and social opposition to it largely sprang out of the eugenics movements of the 1800's and early 1900's, and those laws were repealed when those movements went out of fashion.

[Yo_Mama]

23. If you do it generation after generation it's a problem.

Ask the Amish.

http://www.arabnews.com/news/457047

In the UK, they noticed that sub-populations that do the cousin marriage thing had a noticeably higher rate of problems at birth.

[Xithras]

25. Yes and no.

Interbreeding in a small population group increases the rate of genetic mutations. Some of these are problematic (congenital birth defects) and some are not. Generally speaking, this kind of breeding has been the origin of most genetic innovation within a species and has driven evolution.

But it's neither here nor there in regards to legality. There shouldn't be any legal connection between the ability to reproduce and marriage.

[Sunlei]

6. as many as 20? at least thats not to many pregnant children to deal with.

[pampango]

8. "The government in The Hague is rushing to close a loophole in the asylum law which has so far

allowed child brides to be reunited with their husbands in the Netherlands.

"A 12-year-old girl with a 40-year-old-man - that is not a marriage, that is abuse", says politician Attje Kuiken, whose Labour party is a partner in the ruling coalition.

"We're talking about really young children, girls 12, 13 years old. I want to protect these children. The government should take them into foster care and protect them, because before the new law comes into force, they can still be subject to abuse."

The right wing, anti-immigration Freedom Party (PVV) is enjoying its highest ever poll rating. The Freedom Party's popularity is being partly attributed to Dutch concern about the continent's inability to manage the flow of new arrivals."

The Dutch government is acting in a liberal fashion by reacting to these 'child brides' as cases of abuse and passing a new law to deal with the problem. They are not seeking to restrict the admission of refugees into the country, as the right wing parties urge them to do

[EL34x4]

12. The Hague should've anticipated this from the beginning

Instead of reacting to it now.

It's not like the penchant for child brides from the Middle East have been some well-kept secret that Westerners aren't discovering until now.

[Lychee2]

18. No, what should have happened from the beginning is this:

The United States should never have gone to war in the Middle East. That is the ENTIRE REASON for the refugee crisis in Europe now.

[EL34x4]

28. Well, of course there's that... (eom)

[CreekDog]

33. Do you think you're clever to try to conflate diversity goals with imperialism?

and perhaps this is also indicative of how you feel about diversity.

[Elmergantry]

14. The Dutch need to

learn to "celebrate diversity" instead of thinking their social standards are better than someone else's /s

[Lychee2]

19. "Celebrate diversity"?

Is that your buzz-word? "Diversity" is the main cause of the backwardness of the Middle East. National lines were created by the Brits after WWI to force people of different tribes, ethnicities, linguistic groups and religious beliefs to live in the same countries together. The purpose? Divide and conquer. That was Britain's "celebration of diversity." Iraq is one example of this. And look what it created: a "nation" where there are two alternatives: (1) rule by an iron dicatator, e.g., Saddam, or (2) anarchy and chaos, which is what they have now.

[Elmergantry]

24. Yes it was the British

Who imposed Sharia law, child brides, honor killings, female genital mutiliation, murder of homosexuals, etc etc to the Middle east.
NEVER was such a thing until they arrived.

[xocet]

27. Now that is an extraordinary claim! How about a link to back up that delusion? n/t

[Elmergantry]

29. Sorry, I thought the sarcasm was obvous.

The "backwardness" of the Middle East far predates the British.

[xocet]

30. Oh no! Apparently, I've gone sarcasm-blind. Arghhhhhh!

[Elmergantry]

34. Well to be honest...

Around here sometimes it can be hard to differentiate between what is, and what is not. So dont be too hard on yourself!

[pampango]

21. The left in the Netherlands does 'celebrate diversity'. The right does not. That is typical of

practically every country in the world, including our own.

[uhnope]

16. Jerry Lee Lewis's first wife was 13. eom

[smirkymonkey]

31. Oh, well in that case. I guess it's fine. Carry on child molesters.

[Warpy]

26. Girl children are often married off at menarche

so the family won't have to endure the shame of a daughter exploring her own sexuality. This is a fact in much of the developing world as it was in Europe until fairly recently. Married children who want to stay that way should be respected. Pregnant children need medical care without judgment. The country can enforce its laws on anyone who moves there. It can't enforce them retroactively.

The girls need to be interviewed and their wishes to rejoin or reject their partners honored.

[melman]

35. No

Child marriage should not be fucking respected.

[Warpy]

36. I think you might do more damage if you come in all hamfisted and heavy handed.

The participants will just go underground. At least with it in the open, you've got a chance of getting the girls some medical care and support, as well as a way out for those who want a way out.

Much of the world is not the way we in the west would wish it to be and sometimes we have to deal with it as it is.