Locally...

My gosh what were YOU thinking?!? Oh. Wait. You weren't. A 17-year-old girl met a "boy" on-line and has been "having an affair" with him for "some months." Were you married? Was he married? How do you have "an affair" if one of the parties involved isn't married? If neither of you were married you having something but whatever it was it wasn't an "affair." Whatever. So the girl meets a guy - on-line - and then goes to a mall to meet up with him. When she got there, she said "three young men (including her boyfriend) kidnapped her, took her to an apartment and raped her." So, what were you thinking?!? In a culture like this, where we are, where NO ONE is allowed to be "hooking up" with unrelated members of the opposite sex, and where sexuality is repressed beyond belief, did you actually think that the boy was just going to want to shop for shoes or something? Good grief. No one deserves to be raped. Ever. But doesn't the 17-year-old girl have to accept some responsibility for her part in this, as well? Why isn't being stupid a crime?!? [Rhetorical, that.]

Looks like someone is going to working to make sure that little 10 and 12-year-old girls won't be able to get married, after all. About time. The Human Rights Commission is taking steps to end marriages involving minors children and "has begun studying ways to set a minimum age for marriage... It is expected that the minimum age will be set at 16." Last week, the grand mufti, said "If a girl exceeds 10 or 12 then she is eligible for marriage, and whoever thinks she is too young, then he or she is wrong and has done her an injustice." The world-wide-web has been abuzz since. Who knows how long it will take for an actual law to be implemented that will put an end to this practice, but that it is in the works is a good start. Baby steps.

And, speaking of babies... A 35-year-old woman [who, by the way is named, in full, in the article] is brain-dead from developing serious complications after undergoing her FIFTH Cesarean section. I had a conversation at a party in October with a woman who had worked as a mid-wife for ten years, here. She had some very interesting things to say about "local" women who wait until they are in labor before seeking any medical attention whatsoever [i.e., no prenatal care], and that Cesarean section was the preferred method of childbirth versus a natural labor. I have no medical training, and have only had one child so I'm not the right person to be consulting, but this doctor says, "Beyond three, some women will face a substantial surgical risk that needs to be weighed against whether they really want to have that next baby." The husband of the brain-dead woman, instead of taking any responsibility for his wife's condition and the fact that this was her fifth C-Section wants the doctors who tried to save the woman's life punished. It is always somebody else's fault, isn't it.

Sadness, here. Two babies are dead after inhaling toxic fumes from pesticide. The pesticides which are used here are banned in the United States. Although, I will say, that the ones we are allowed to use to kill bugs are a heck of a lot more effective than anything you could buy in the States.

A father has been detained for torturing his 9-year-old daughter "for her poor performance in school." The girl, according to this brief article, "was brought to the hospital with burn injuries in her hand." What the heck did he - the father - do to the child? Put her hand on a stove burner for sloppy penmanship? So many people - not just here, but everywhere - just do NOT deserve to have children!