[updated to clarify that this photograph was taken in Afghanistan, not Iran, as might be inferred from what I wrote below]
Writing in Der Spiegel, Leon de Winter asks us not to turn away from but rather to contemplate the UNICEF Photo of the Year 2007. Click on the link, which will take you to a larger version of the picture of the 11-year-old girl sitting next to the 40-year-old she’s about to be married to.
De Winter writes:
There are people who will look at this image and be able to continue with business as usual — without disgust, nausea and rage.
He is not one of them:
Many of us in the West … ask themselves: Who are we to believe that it is inhumane to sell an 11-year-old girl? Who are we to impose our values so vehemently on the Afghans, on this man and on this girl?
I don’t have a clue who we are. But I know that this universe is not only a universe of iPods, Disneylands, CO2 penalties, tax write-offs, and New Year’s sales in our department stores. No, I know that this is also a universe of human rights. I know that this universe is deeply shaken — right down to its core — by the suffering of this lonely, lonely little girl.
A useful reminder: the legal age of consent for girls in Iran is 9, according to this piece in the BBC.
When Ayaan Hirsi Ali campaigns against the terrible things done the world over in the name of Islam, this is one of the practices she is talking about.
