I hate tragic stories

They make me sad – and angry.

Stories like this.

AMMAN, Jordan (CNN) -- A 12-year-old Yemeni girl, who was forced into marriage, died during a painful childbirth that also killed her baby, a children's rights group said Monday.

Fawziya Ammodi struggled for three days in labor, before dying of severe bleeding at a hospital on Friday, said the Seyaj Organization for the Protection of Children.

…

A 12-year-old girl. Married. To a 24-year-old man. Pregnant. In childbirth. Dead, along with the baby.

Normally, I’d make a wisecrack about there being something so damn wrong with this picture or something, but I just can’t summon up any humor.

Also, this story implies that the man “had sex with” the girl when she was still 11. (And, of course, by “had sex with”, I mean, raped. No girl that young can possibly consent to sex with a man that much older than her, especially if, as this case implies, it was in the express interest of falling pregnant.)

Of course, with little Fawziya’s passing, the man who had sex with raped her is now free to go around, searching for the next little girl(s) to marry. Maybe this time, he’ll want someone a little older, more able to suffer through childbirth and live.

A thirteen-year-old, perhaps.

The report mentions a similar case, where 10-year-old Nujood Ali, who in 2008 married (or rather, “was married to”) an older man who beat and raped her right after the wedding ceremony. However, Nujood was able to hail a cab to escape, and soon after, she sought – and obtained – a divorce.

That’s the principal difference between these two stories. Nujood lived to tell the tale and grow up.

Fawziya didn’t.

(via Pharyngula)
Technorati tags: child abuse · child pregnancy · Yemen · child marriage · Fawziya Ammodi · Nujood Ali · child rape · rape