Syria’s refugee brides: “My daughter is willing to sacrifice herself for her family”
▻http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/03/22/young_brides_displaced_by_syria_conflict_sought_by_older_grooms.html
Her daughter Aya is their best hope.
“My daughter is willing to sacrifice herself for her family,” Nezar says. “If the war had not happened I would not marry my daughter to a Saudi. But the Syrians here are poor and have no money.”
Nezar’s daughter is 17. The Saudi groom is 70.
[…]
Grasping for the security of a husband and home, hundreds of girls are being sold into early marriage. […]
“If you see how Syrians here live you will see why they marry their daughters to whoever will take them,” Um Majed says. “People are poor and they will do anything to pay the rent.”
The surplus of desperate Syrian refugees means marriage has become a buyer’s market with some grooms offering as little as $100 cash for a bride.
The legal age of marriage in Jordan is 18 but some religious clerics will marry underage girls for a small fee. This puts the girls at even greater risk for exploitation because some of Um Majed’s clients want a temporary union lasting a few weeks or months after which the girl is returned to her parents.
In other words, it is religiously sanctioned prostitution.
“One of my brides has been married three, four times,” Um Majed says. “She is 15.”
[…]
She admits the marriage market is hazardous. Most of the potential grooms offer a few dollars to leer at her daughter.
“You are already selling your daughter, you might as well sell her to someone decent,” she says.
Nezar cuts the meeting short. Aya is having belly-dancing lessons to increase her appeal to the elderly groom.