This is how racism takes root

By now surely everyone knows the case of the eight men convicted of picking vulnerable underage girls off the streets, then plying them with drink and drugs before having sex with them. A shocking story. But maybe you haven't heard. Because these sex assaults did not take place in Rochdale, where a similar story led the news for days in May, but in Derby earlier this month. Fifteen girls aged 13 to 15, many of them in care, were preyed on by the men. And though they were not working as a gang, their methods were similar – often targeting children in care and luring them with, among other things, cuddly toys. But this time, of the eight predators, seven were white, not Asian. And the story made barely a ripple in the national media.

Of the daily papers, only the Guardian and the Times reported it. There was no commentary anywhere on how these crimes shine a light on British culture, or how middle-aged white men have to confront the deep flaws in their religious and ethnic identity. Yet that's exactly what played out following the conviction in May of the "Asian sex gang" in Rochdale, which made the front page of every national newspaper. Though analysis of the case focused on how big a factor was race, religion and culture, the unreported story is of how politicians and the media have created a new racial scapegoat. In fact, if anyone wants to study how racism begins, and creeps into the consciousness of an entire nation, they need look no further.

Imagine you were living in a town of 20,000 people – the size of, say, Penzance in Cornwall – and one day it was discovered that one of its residents had been involved in a sex crime. Would it be reasonable to say that the whole town had a cultural problem, that it needed to address the scourge – that anyone not doing so was part of a "conspiracy of silence"? But the intense interest in the Rochdale story arose from a January 2011 Times "scoop" that was based on the conviction of at most 50 British Pakistanis out of a total UK population of 1.2 million, just one in 24,000: one person per Penzance.

Make no mistake, the Rochdale crimes were vile, and those convicted deserve every year of their sentences. But where, amid all the commentary, was the evidence that this is a racial issue; that there's something inherently perverted about Muslim or Asian culture?

Even the Child Protection and Online Protection Centre (Ceop), which has also studied potential offenders who have not been convicted, has only identified 41 Asian gangs (of 230 in total) and 240 Asian individuals – and they are spread across the country. But, despite this, a new stereotype has taken hold: that a significant proportion of Asian men are groomers (and the rest of their communities know of it and keep silent).

But if it really is an "Asian" thing, how come Indians don't do it? If it's a "Pakistani" thing, how come an Afghan was convicted in the Rochdale case? And if it's a "Muslim" thing, how come it doesn't seem to involve anyone of African or Middle Eastern origin? The standard response to anyone who questions this is: face the facts, all those convicted in Rochdale were Muslim. Well, if one case is enough to make such a generalisation, how about if all the members of a gang of armed robbers were white; or cybercriminals; or child traffickers? (All three of these have happened.) Would we be so keen to "face the facts" and make it a problem the whole white community has to deal with? Would we have articles examining what it is about Britishness or Christianity or Europeanness, that makes people so capable of such things?

In fact, Penzance had not just one paedophile, but a gang of four. They abused 28 girls, some as young as five, and were finally convicted two years ago. All were white. And last month, at a home affairs select committee, deputy children's commissioner Sue Berelowitz quoted a police officer who had told her that "there isn't a town, village or hamlet in which children are not being sexually exploited".

Whatever the case, we know that abuse of white girls is not a cultural or religious issue because there is no longstanding history of it taking place in Asia or the Muslim world.

How did middle-aged Asian men from tight-knit communities even come into contact with white teenage girls in Rochdale? The main cultural relevance in this story is that vulnerable, often disturbed, young girls, regularly out late at night, often end up in late-closing restaurants and minicab offices, staffed almost exclusively by men. After a while, relationships build up, with the men offering free lifts and/or food. For those with a predatory instinct, sexual exploitation is an easy next step. This is an issue of what men can do when away from their own families and in a position of power over badly damaged young people.

It's a story repeated across Britain, by white and other ethnic groups: where the opportunity arises, some men will take advantage. The precise method, and whether it's an individual or group crime, depends on the particular setting – be they priests, youth workers or networks on the web.

Despite all we know about racism, genocide and ethnic cleansing, the Rochdale case showed how shockingly easy it is to demonise a community. Before long, the wider public will believe the problem is endemic within that race/religion, and that anyone within that group who rebuts the claims is denying this basic truth. Normally, one would expect a counter-argument to force its way into the discussion. But in this case the crimes were so horrific that right-thinking people were naturally wary of being seen to condone them. In fact, the reason I am writing this is that I am neither Asian nor Muslim nor Pakistani, so I cannot be accused of being in denial or trying to hide a painful truth. But I am black, and I know how racism works; and, more than that, I have a background in maths and science, so I know you can't extrapolate a tiny, flawed set of data and use it to make a sweeping generalisation.

I am also certain that, if the tables were turned and the victims were Asian or Muslim, we would have been subjected to equally skewed "expert" commentary asking: what is wrong with how Muslims raise girls? Why are so many of them on the streets at night? Shouldn't the community face up to its shocking moral breakdown?

While our media continue to exclude minority voices in general, such lazy racial generalisations are likely to continue. Even the story of a single Asian man acting alone in a sex case made the headlines. As in Derby this month, countless similar cases involving white men go unreported.

We have been here before, of course: in the 1950s, West Indian men were labelled pimps, luring innocent young white girls into prostitution. By the 1970s and 80s they were vilified as muggers and looters. And two years ago, Channel 4 ran stories, again based on a tiny set of data, claiming there was an endemic culture of gang rape in black communities. The victims weren't white, though, so media interest soon faded. It seems that these stories need to strike terror in the heart of white people for them to really take off.

What is also at play here is the inability of people, when learning about a different culture or race, to distinguish between the aberrations of a tiny minority within that group, and the normal behaviour of a significant section. Some examples are small in number but can be the tip of a much wider problem: eg, knife crime, which is literally the sharp end of a host of problems affecting black communities ranging from family breakdown, to poverty, to low school achievement and social exclusion.

But in Asia, Pakistan or Islam there is no culture of grooming or sex abuse – any more than there is anywhere else in the world – so the tiny number of cases have no cultural significance. Which means those who believe it, or perpetuate it, are succumbing to racism, much as they may protest. Exactly the same mistake was made after 9/11, when the actions of a tiny number of fanatics were used to cast aspersions against a 1.5 billion-strong community worldwide. Motives were questioned: are you with us or the terrorists? How fundamental are your beliefs? Can we trust you?

Imagine if, after Anders Breivik's carnage in Norway last year, which he claimed to be in defence of the Christian world, British people were repeatedly asked whether they supported him? Lumped together in the same white religious group as the killer and constantly told they must renounce him, or explain why we should believe that their type of Christianity – even if they were non-believers – is different from his. "It's nothing to do with me", most people would say. But somehow that answer was never good enough when given by Muslims over al-Qaida. And this hectoring was self-defeating because it caused only greater alienaton and resentment towards the west and, in particular, its foreign policies.

Ultimately, the urge to vilify groups of whom we know little may be very human, and helps us bond with those we feel are "like us". But if we are going to deal with the world as it is, and not as a cosy fantasyland where our group is racially and culturally supreme, we have to recognise when sweeping statements are false.

And if we truly care about the sexual exploitation of girls, we need to know that we must look at all communities, across the whole country, and not just at those that play to a smug sense of superiority about ourselves. Source

Oxford sex abuse victim: 'At first they treat you like a princess'

One of the victims who gave evidence in court against the Oxford child sexual exploitation ring has told the Guardian how she was groomed, raped and trafficked while in the care of Oxfordshire county council.

Girl C's abuse began just after her 13th birthday. By the age of 14, the gang had got her addicted to hard drugs and was regularly trafficking the teenager across the country to be raped by strangers.

By 16, Girl C was pregnant by one of her abusers. She finally managed to escape only after her son was born, when the gang threatened to murder the baby if she did not start recruiting younger girls into the same cycle of abuse.

Speaking exclusively to the Guardian, Girl C revealed that her adoptive mother spent two years begging the council for help with her daughter, first contacting the council when Girl C was 12 years old and starting to stay out all night, returning home drunk and dishevelled.

"Mum wrote to all the key people in social services, called her own case conferences, invited agencies and got them sitting around the table, but they just passed the parcel between them – and all the while, I was getting increasingly under the power and influence of the gang," said Girl C.

"My adoptive mum started asking Oxfordshire social services for help with me in 2004 and they refused and resisted giving even the most basic support for two years."

By the time the council agreed to put the girl in a temporary care home, she said: "It was too late: the grooming process had run its course. I was completely under their [the gang's] control."

Shortly after she was trafficked from Oxford to London for the first time, she said, she tried to talk to staff at the care home but was told the conversation was "inappropriate".

"A week after I moved into the care home, I tried to tell two members of staff all the things that had been happening to me but they told me it was inappropriate to have the conversation at that time," she said. "They promised we would discuss it later but that never happened.

"If they had listened to me, they would have known exactly what was going on and it would not have happened again. But they turned me away. I wouldn't trust them after that."

Five men – Bassam and Mohammed Karrar, Akhtar and Anjum Dogar, and Assad Hussain – were convicted on Tuesday on charges including rape, conspiracy to rape, trafficking for sexual exploitation and facilitating child prostitution against Girl C.

Two other defendants were found guilty of charges involving other victims. Two other men were cleared.

Girl C is reluctant to draw wider conclusions from the fact that all her abusers were Muslim and their victims white.

"Not all the men are Asian: at least two are Egyptian," she said. "They are, though, all Muslim – but not all Muslim men behave like that."

There did, however, appear to be a subset of Muslim men in Oxford who targeted white girls.

Girl C said that when the men asked her to recruit younger girls, they specified that they wanted only white girls. "But not all the punters were Asian or North African," she added. "Although they were all foreign."

Girl C eventually moved "halfway across the country" in a final, desperate attempt to escape her abusers. Now living with her adoptive mother and young child, she has described how the gang went to considerable effort to slowly draw her in over many months.

"The grooming was so clever. It takes about one year and then it's too late: you're completely under their control," she remembered.

"It was such a smooth, planned, deliberate process.

"At first, they treat you like a princess. They make you feel wanted, cared for and ask you about your life and your family. They buy you gifts and make you the centre of their attention.

"That goes on for about six months, by which time you've told them so much that they know exactly what to say to get under your skin. Slowly they turn you against your family.

"I was so wrapped up in them that I believed what they told me without questioning it. I thought they were so wise; that they knew everything. I thought they were the only people I could trust.

"When you're dependent on them emotionally, they tie you even closer with drugs and alcohol. They got me addicted to crack cocaine first, then started giving me heroin. They once gave me a massive overdose and I nearly died.

"I was resuscitated by an ambulance man who realised what had happened to me even though I had no idea: I didn't even know what drug it was that I'd been given. I was like a zombie.

"The next stage of the grooming process happens once you're completely dependent on them," she said. "At this point, they begin flicking between attentive and being suddenly rude and aggressive. But even before they begin explicitly threatening you, you instinctively know something really bad will happen to you if you don't do what they want."

The sexual abuse was the second stage of the grooming process, she said. "It took six months for sex with one person to start. The man who targeted me said he loved me.

"But soon the switch flicked and he started saying things like: 'You have to [sleep with other men] for me because of all the things I have bought for you and done for you.' By that point the threats and the violence become explicit.

"You know that refusing would be really dangerous but by that point it doesn't occur to you to refuse: you're too much of a zombie. You're completely at their mercy."

When Girl C became pregnant at 16, she tried to escape but the threats became worse. "They said that I had to work for them in another way, by recruiting younger girls to do the jobs I was saying I wouldn't do any more. I couldn't do that but because I refused, I had to carry on working for them, doing what I'd been doing before."

After she had given birth to her baby, Girl C tried once again to escape. "I was desperate to get away but I was too terrified: they threatened to chop my son's head off and put it in a suitcase, and then kill me and my mum.

"I knew they would do it, too. They're not human," she said. "I have no doubt they would have killed me and done it painfully and slowly.

"Eventually, I got to the point where I didn't dare to leave the house," she said. "Then one day, I just snapped and realised the only ways to get out of this were to commit suicide, be murdered or move with my family halfway across the country. Within a few months, we were gone."

Girl C agreed to give evidence against the gang in court. In January, she travelled to London and spent eight days in the witness box at the Old Bailey.

It was, she said, such a traumatic experience that, despite Tuesday's sentences, she would not go through it again and would advise other victims of sexual abuse not to do so either.

"The defence lawyer set out to destroy and humiliate me in court," she said. "The judge had to adjourn the hearing five times to make him stop various lines of questioning because they were so aggressive and awful.

"I understand they have to question me but that defence lawyer tried to destroy me. I almost gave up a number of times and walked away.

"In the end, I stuck it out but I was traumatised by the experience. I'm on antidepressants now as a result," she said.

Girl C said she knew other girls in Oxfordshire who were being "groomed and abused by other gangs in exactly the same way that I was".

"I know some of these girls personally," she said. "I know for a fact that they've been let down and failed by social services in the early stages of their grooming process, just as I was failed, and as a result, they won't tell anyone what's happening – and the abuse just continues." Source

Modern Day Child Prostitution in Kabul, Afghanistan: Children are used as Sex Workers in Afghanistan to Serve Foreigners

When we hear about the news in Afghanistan, the mainstream media tells us stories of explosions and deaths of military personnel and civilians. A story that is not being told is of child prostitution slavery in Afghanistan.

“There is a police operation going on by a neighborhood police chief in Kabul that has girls working for him,” says German contractor Hans, who does not want to release his last name for security reasons.

“You know prostitution is legal in Germany and I don’t mind paying a fair price for a sex worker, but here in Afghanistan the prostitutes are children, teenagers and that is where I draw the line. I have a 14-year-old daughter back home in Germany and I do not condone child prostitution,” says Hans.

A 15-year-old named Badria Durrani says, “I was forced into prostitution because the police in the area said they will arrest my father. My father is just a baker and he does not want any trouble with the police, so I work as a prostitute having sex with foreigners because that is what the police want me to do.”

Badria’s father Mohammed Durrani says “I did not agree, but the police threaten to throw me in jail, so I agreed because I have to support my 3 wives and 8 children as a baker. With the extra income my daughter makes after she pays the police their 40% share, the rest of the money is for our family.”

“Also, the police told me not to worry. My daughter will only serve foreigners so Afghan men will not know that she is a prostitute and later she will be able to find an Afghan husband for marriage,” says Mohammed.

“I don’t want to do this anymore but what choice do I have? If I run away my father will be thrown in jail and then our family does not have money to pay for rent and will be kicked out of our home. I have to sacrifice my life for our family. I hate this government and these foreigners that come here to have sex with girls my age, but the government here is not protecting us. They send these police from the north of Afghanistan to take advantage of us,” says Badria.

A 12-year-old girl named Ara Atta says, “My father was killed by the Americans because he did not stop his car at a checkpoint, trying to take my mother to the hospital because she was going into labor. The Americans shot at the car and killed my father but my mother was not harmed and taken to the hospital and my brother Ibrahim was born.”

“The police told my mother that she will not receive my father’s retirement check for working at the Ministry of Agriculture unless I work as a prostitute serving foreigners. My mother at first refused but she relented once the police told her that I would be able to keep 60% of the pay and be able to keep supporting my mom and 6 brothers and sisters and the other 40% would go to the police,” says Ara.

Ara further stated, “I don’t want to do this but we have no choice. If I run away, the police will ensure that we will not receive my father’s retirement check. I curse them and the foreigners that are using my body for sex but I have to do this or my mother and siblings will go hungry and we will be out in the street because we don’t have money for rent.”

The invasion of Afghanistan by the United States and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) offered the Afghan people democracy and social changes for women through education and new careers that were closed to them under the Taliban.

What has actually happened here in Afghanistan is that the government institutions that were established by the U.S. and ISAF, such as the Afghan Police, are using female children and women for profit to serve foreigners as their sex slaves.

Source

f.a.y.z.a

Fayza, 25, is a university student from Yemen. She was forced to drop out of school when she was made to marry at the age of eight. That marriage ended in divorce a year later. At 14, she became the third wife of a 60-year-old man. After bearing three children, she divorced again at the age of 18. Fayza is now only allowed to see her children every other weekend. Her older sister persuaded her to finish her education, arguing that this would be her only way to improve her life. Despite her poverty, her lowly social status as a divorced woman in an ultra-conservative society, and her parents’ opposition to her plans to go back to school, Fayza is now in her first year of business studies at university (with a help from a grant from an NGO called YERO). For her, education is not the goal, but simply a means to achieve her goals. Her dream is to get a decent job and have the financial stability to give her children a better life.
Source

“I made it possible for my father to buy new wives”

She escaped from her husband. Ran to court. Got a divorce. All at the age of 10. Publishing her memoirs, Nujood Ali from Yemen began to break down barriers. Five years on, we visit Nujood to see how she is getting on. Her life, it seems, has only gone from really bad to less bad.

BY RNW correspondent Judith Spiegel, in the Yemeni capital Sana'a

The house I enter is dark and small. I am in Al Hasabah, an area of Sana’a where heavy fighting took place between government troops and tribesmen in the spring of 2011. On the bare concrete floor are some dirty mattresses and a jerry can with water. A wire without a light bulb hangs from the ceiling. The only decoration in the four square meter room is a poster of a car and one with Quranic verses.

I am confused. I was supposed to meet a girl rich by Yemeni standards. In the media Nujood was portrayed as a happy middle class girl, going to a private school, wanting to become a lawyer. My thoughts are interrupted when Nujood steps out of the darkness, wearing her best dress. 

Fled the fighting“I do not go to school anymore, maybe next year,” Nujood says with an apologetic look. “We had to flee during the war and ever since I didn’t go back to school. I do not live in my own house anymore, because my father lives there. He used to beat me, I cannot live with him.” His third wife kicked her out of the house that Nujood actually owns. It was bought for her with the help of the publisher of her book. 

Nujood’s book did well. But she is not the one who has benefited. Nujood explains: “My father gets a monthly salary, I think it comes from the publisher, but I am not sure. He gives me only 50 dollars a month, sometimes I get nothing.” Suddenly she realises: “I made it possible for him to buy new wives.” 

No new lawA law to impose a minimum age for marriages, for both girls and boys, never made it through the Yemeni parliament. Religious scholars and other arties intervened to prevent it. Fathers in Yemen can still marry their daughters off as young as eight or nine. 

Bad advertising
The Yemeni authorities have twice denied Nujood permission to travel. Both times she had been invited abroad to receive an award. But the government clearly feels the story of a nine-year old child bride is one better not told to the world. More bad advertising for a country that still ranks at the bottom of the list when it comes to gender equality.

Nujood is not angry, for her this is life. She used to dream of becoming a lawyer, of travelling, of getting scholarships. It did not happen. But Nujood tries to see things positively: “After the book we had a house and food.” Nujood gives me one of her sweet smiles again. She touches my hand, shows me her black nail polish and wants to be in a photo.

Never everThe 13 or 14 year old (Nujood is not sure), is no longer married to a much older man who raped and beat her. She still hopes to go back to school, but does not seem very sure she will. And how about marriage, will she ever get married again? “Never ever ever ever!” 

The publisher has not responded to a request for information about why the book revenues are not paid directly to Nujood and whether anyone is monitoring the situation. Source

National Geographic Live! : Too Young to Wed

Child Sexual Exploitation is Not an Ethnic or Cultural Crime

In her oral evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, the deputy children's commissioner, Sue Berelowitz, said: "... What I am uncovering is that the sexual exploitation of children is happening all over the country. As one police officer who was a lead in a very big investigation in a very lovely, leafy, rural part of the country said to me, there is not a town, village or hamlet in which children are not being sexually exploited."

It was therefore a welcome opportunity when parliamentarians were able to debate the very sensitive subject of 'Child Sexual Exploitation.' An opportunity to debate protecting children from becoming victims of the most abhorrent abuse.

I was dismayed when the focus of the debate was deflected away from this and entangled instead with issues of race and religion. Tory MP Kris Hopkins insisted that "Time and time again it's a white girl being raped by Muslim men".

It seems that Mr. Hopkins had completely disregarded evidence presented to the Home Affairs Select committee in which the deputy children's commissioner when questioned on this point had stated this was not an issue of race or religion, this was an issue of methodology and was simply 'one' type of sexual abuse taking place. A point made also by the assistant chief commissioner of Greater Manchester police and the judge presiding over the recent exploitation case in Derby.

Separately, and in a wider context it is equally important to emphasise methods to define this debate. There are many methods which Mr. Kris Hopkins and others neglect to mention when taking their misguided arguments on race and religion: the trafficking of vulnerable young girls who are forced in to prostitution by criminal gangs, more recently we see with Jimmy Savile and others who have used their position and power to satisfy their grotesque and perverse needs. We learned of the abuse taking place in care homes such as North Wales, or cases of affluent men travelling to the Far East to satisfy their perverse desires, then there are methods deployed by Internet groomers, or the cases of abuse carried out by Catholic priests.

The common factors and themes which run through cases of child sexual exploitation are not race or religion but that the perpetrators are male and prey upon vulnerable young victims.

Arguments which point to Asian perpetrators seeing young white females as 'easy meat' do not take note that sadly such females are rarely from a happy, secure family life and are usually from the most vulnerable group in our society. A sexual predator does not consider the race and religion of their victims, those who are preyed upon are targeted because of their vulnerability.

The brutal exploitation of vulnerable young victims raises important and worrying questions which must be openly and honestly debated. We should be asking ourselves how these victims came to be in such exposed positions and why their families and local agencies were
unable to protect them.

The number of young girls in our society who lack a family structure which can protect them is increasing. Statistics show that a third of the victims are in care, while others are from poor backgrounds and lack self esteem or the empowerment to change their lives. Sadly it is these factors which make them more vulnerable on the radar of an exploitative sexual monster. Whether these young victims are white or of another ethnicity does not make them more or less vulnerable.

Kris Hopkins and the others in favour of his argument risk pandering to the whims of the BNP and other far right groups. This is not an ethnic or cultural crime. Child exploitation, grooming or child abuse of any other kind is not uniquely or predominantly carried out by one ethnic or religious group. Nine out of ten of those on the sex offenders register are white British.

Yesterday's debate should not have been about the ethnicity and religion of the abuser, nor should it be an opportunity to tarnish an entire community.

This is a debate about the vulnerability of victims, let's not forget about them.

Source

Child brides blot tribal Pakistan

Islamabad, Pakistan - As international headlines for much of this month focused on the attack on 14-year-old activist Malala Yousafzai by the Taliban, what generally went unnoticed was the outrageous plight of more than a dozen young girls in Pakistan.

Last month, a blood feud between two battling tribes in the Dera Bugti district of Balochistan province was settled by a tribal "Jirga" (assembly of elders) that decided to hand over as many as 13 young girls in "vani" - an age-old tribal custom that gives females in marriage to males of another tribal group to settle a dispute.

The punishment was handed down by the Jirga allegedly presided over by a member of the Balochistan provincial assembly, Mir Tariq Masoori Bugti. Members of the legislator's clan, however, denied that he had chaired the Jirga, saying he was in Multan at the time.

On October 9, the Supreme Court took notice of media reports on the issue and summoned Mir Tariq as well as the deputy commissioner of Dera Bugti to explain the facts of the case.

"Mir Tariq absolutely did chair that Jirga; you can ask anyone in the Dera Bugti area," Ghulam Nabi Shahani, an elder of the rival Shahani Masoori tribe, said. "He was in attendance for two hours, and his brothers also joined proceedings later."

Nabi also alledged that Mir Tariq's guards held a man from his tribe hostage till all 13 girls were handed over along with a Rs3 million (about $30,000) fine.

Un-Islamic practice

Child marriage - known as "swara" in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, "vani" in Punjab, "sang chati" in Sindh, and "vani" and "lajai" in Balochistan - are enacted in disturbingly large swathes of Pakistan and reinforced by customs that treat women as commodities.

Despite the fact that Pakistan is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of Children, which refers to early marriage as the marriage of people less than 18 years of age, 30 per cent of all marriages in the country fall in the category of child marriages, according to the Rahnuma-Family Planning Association of Pakistan.

"These young girls can be subject to rape while still minors," said Samar Minallah, a human rights activist who in 2004 filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the handing over of women as compensation to settle disputes. While Minallah's petition is still being heard, the vani of at least 70 girls has been blocked by the court since.

At a gathering of women parliamentarians and child marriage survivors organised by a local NGO, 15-year-old Shagufta, from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa's capital city of Peshwar, revealed that she was forcibly married at 10 to a boy of the same age. "It seemed like they just wanted a domestic servant," she said. 

Rukhsana, also from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, was 11 when she was married to a 20-year-old man. "On the first night, my mother-in-law forced me to spend the night with my father-in-law and said this was their custom," she recounted. 

Fiza Batool Gilani, the goodwill ambassador for Women's Empowerment, decried the practices as "totally un-Islamic".

"Nowhere does Islam say it is okay to treat women like commodities instead of human beings," Gilani said. 

Formally, these marriages are prohibited in Pakistan under the Child Marriages Restraint Act, 1929, which punishes offenders with one-month imprisonment and/or a fine of Rs1000 (approximately $12).

But the law, according to many observers, is incomplete and hard to implement.

"Conviction under this law does not serve to nullify the marriage, nor is child marriage a cognisable offence, which means that the police cannot intervene directly," Usma Tahir, a policy manager at ActionAid pakistan, said.

Power politics

Government officials are often quick to trot out a list of fresh pro-women legislation enacted by the Pakistan People's Party-led coalition government in the last four and a half years.

However, many who hail from areas where vani and other crimes against women are prevalent remain sceptical that the new legislations will change anything. 

"All these laws will mean nothing as long as parallel systems of governance and administration are in place," former deputy speaker of the National Assembly Sardar Wazir Jogezai said. "As things stand now, half the problems here are solved through Jirgas and the rest through constitutional laws and electoral politics. This confusion only leads to more problems."

Explaining the recent vani case in Dera Bugti, Jogazai said the problem arose because Mir Tariq, who allegedly chaired the Jirga that delivered the extraordinary punishment, was both a parliamentarian and a tribal head. "When you have to balance the demands of justice, the tribe and your voters, justice will inevitably take the back seat."

Meanwhile, officials in the federal government say they are unable to fully enforce laws in the provinces after a recent amendment to the constitution placed women's rights under the jurisdiction of provincial leadership. 

"It is now for the provinces to make comprehensive legislation and implement them to protect women from harmful traditional practices," Gilani explained.

Feudal system
Other rights activists believe that vanis cannot be ended until the system of governance in provinces like Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is overhauled. 

While the sardari (feudal) system in Balochistan was abolished in the early sixties, successive governments have failed to effectively implement the ban due to entrenched resistance from the feudal class. 

A Quetta-based journalist speaking on the condition of anonymity explained: "The sardars have so much power they can still order people to walk on fire to prove their innocence and hand over women to solve feuds."

On the other hand, there is also growing consensus that state security agencies are responsible for the sorry state of affairs in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

"All authority in the provinces is vested in the security forces, which enjoy complete impunity. There is a political government in these areas in name only," I A Rehman, the general secretary of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said. 

Poverty also plays a role in perpetuating anti-women practices. 

"Giving away a daughter in marriage is one less mouth at home to feed," explained Minallah. "In most cases, practices like vani involve the daughters of illiterate and poor people who don't have money or other assets to give as compensation."

Beyond repair?

While rolling back the system of governance and entrenched norms in these areas of Pakistan will be difficult, rights activists suggest the situation is not beyond repair.

"We've seen new legislation in the recent past, now the next step is working with law enforcement agencies," said Anis Haroon, Chairperson of the National Commission on the Status of Women, a statutory body that also acts as a watchdog body to ensure implementation of laws. "Police and other law enforcement have to be sensitised to the issues involved. Making them aware of what the law says is key."

Experts also suggest that culturally appropriate measures such as sensitising religious leaders, tribal elders and marriage contractors about the legal age of marriage will also prove effective.

"Evidence shows that the more education a girl receives, the less likely she is to marry as a child, so improving access to education for both girls and boys and eliminating gender gaps in education are also important in ending child marriages and practices like vani," Haroon added. 

Khawar Mumtaz, renowned Pakistani development activist who runs Shirkat Ghah, a leading women resource centre, also believes that as cases of vani and other types of violence against women are highlighted by the media and civil society, people's behaviour and mind-sets are already beginning to change. "As the debate opens up and discussions intensify, the right amount of moral pressure will be created to end these practices. It is already happening," Mumtaz said.

Minallah s also hopeful: "The fact that Mir Tariq is vehemently denying that he chaired the recent Jirga is itself a signal: that he knows he has done something wrong, which will in turn send a message to other tribal people that this practice is unacceptable and unrepeatable."

In the words of Baloch leader Wazir Jogazai: "Vani may have been tradition once, but no one can claim today that it is anything but a crime."

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11-year-old girl married to 40-year-old man

Before their wedding ceremony begins in rural Afghanistan, a 40-year-old man sits to be photographed with his 11-year-old bride. The girl tells the photographer that she is sad to be engaged because she had hoped to become a teacher. Her favorite class was Dari, the local language, before she had to leave her studies to get married.

She is one of the 51 million child brides around the world today. And it's not just Muslims; it happens across many cultures and regions.

Photographer Stephanie Sinclair has traveled the world taking pictures, like the one of the Afghan couple, to document the phenomenon. Christiane Amanpour spoke with Sinclair about a book which features her photographs called, "Questions without Answers: The World in Pictures by the Photographers of VII."

Amanpour asked Sinclair if the 11-year-old Afghan girl married in 2005, and others like her, consummate their marriages at such an early age. Sinclair says while many Afghans told her the men would wait until puberty, women pulled her aside to tell her that indeed the men do have sex with the prepubescent brides.

Sinclair has been working on the project for nearly a decade. She goes into the areas with help from people in these communities who want the practice to stop, because they see the harmful repercussions.

In Yemen, a similar picture. Tehani and Ghada are sisters-in-law photographed with their husbands, who are both members of the military. Like most of the girls, Tehani didn’t even know she was getting married, until the wedding night. She was six years old.

Tehani describes how she entered the marriage, “They were decorating my hands, but I didn’t know they were going to marry me off. Then my mother came in and said, ‘Come on my daughter.’ They were dressing me up and I was asking, ‘Where are you taking me?’”

Sinclair says, “This harmful, traditional practice of child marriage is just so embedded in some of these cultures that the families don't protect them as they should.”

The subjects do know they’re being photographed and Sinclair tells them the topic she is working on. She does tell them that there is teen pregnancy in places like the U.S., but for the societies she’s photographing it’s even worse that 13-year-old girls are pregnant and unmarried.

Another one of the photographs Sinclair took is of a Yemeni girl named Nujood Ali. In a rare turn of events, Ali managed to get a divorce at age 10.

“A couple months after she was married, she went to the court and found a lawyer – a woman named Shada Nasser and asked her to help her get a divorce, and she was granted [it],” Sinclair says. “It's definitely rare and Nujood became kind of an international symbol of child marriage, because she was able to do this. And I think she's inspired a lot of other girls and other organizations to support these girls, to have a stronger voice.”

Sinclair has documented the practice outside of the Muslim world. In a Christian community in Ethiopia, she captured the image of a 14 year-old girl named Leyualem in a scene that looks like an abduction. Leyualem was whisked away on a mule with a sheet covering up her face. Sinclair asked the groomsmen why they covered her up; they said it was so she would not be able to find her way back home, if she wanted to escape the marriage.

Sinclair travelled to India and Nepal, and photographed child marriages among some Hindus.

A five-year-old Hindu girl named Rajni was married under cover of night: “Literally at four o'clock in the morning. And her two older sisters were married to two other boys,” Sinclair says. “Often you see these group marriages because the girl and the families can't afford to have three weddings.” In the five-year-old girl’s case, Rajni will continue to live with her own family for several years.

Girls aren’t always the only ones forced into marriage. Sinclair wanted to photograph child marries in India and Nepal, because sometimes the boys entering a marriage are also young. “And often they're victims just as much of this harmful traditional practice,” she says.

Sinclair told Amanpour that she hopes her photographs would not only highlight the problems to westerners, but also show people in the areas where this takes place that  if the girls continue to be taken out of the population to forcibly work at home, that their communities suffer as a whole.

“It's a harmful traditional practice that is slowly changing. We just want to have it change even faster.”

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