By Michelle Hu
<[email protected]>

There’s a girl from Yemen that just made the best decision of her life: to get a divorce. She became the youngest divorcee in the world last April, after her parents married her off to a man more than three times her age, and she rebelled against their decision. Nujood Ali is 10 years old, and was beaten and raped by her husband every night until one day, her mother sent her out to buy bread and Ali decided instead to go to a courthouse in Yemen’s capital. She told the judge her story, who approved the divorce.

Sound surprising? It shouldn’t be. Numerous countries around the world have extremely low marriage ages, especially for women. In Ali’s home country of Yemen, half of women under 18 are already married. In Ethiopia, girls as young as six already have husbands. And, even in nations where it is supposedly forbidden to marry young girls off, the authorities generally turn a blind eye. Typically, once a girl reaches puberty, she is eligible for marriage. On the other hand, men typically cannot marry until 18. This gap is an unexplained phenomenon that occurs in these countries. It’s led human rights organizations to ask, “Why does this discrepancy exist?”

What’s more is that in Pakistan and Afghanistan, schoolgirls are sometimes prevented from earning an education. It’s not because schools do not allow them to attend classes, but because locals often throw acid on girls commuting to their schools. These people, with an antiquated sense of society, cannot accept the fact that women are becoming literate or gaining influence in the world. Not surprisingly, these are all nations that view women as lesser beings.

     Now that a black man has become President of the United States, countries worldwide have a new sense of equality. After all, there is no other place on Earth where race plays such a little factor in everyday life. If anything, it is diminishing in importance exponentially.

     It’s about time we do the same for women’s rights. It is absolutely shameful that today, there are more slaves than pre-Civil War times (27 million), and the overwhelming majority of them are women and children. According to the State Department, a slave is brought into the United States every half hour. About 8,000 of those imported annually serve as sex slaves, and one costs a mere $90. 

In the past, racial equality has always preceded gender equality, but if anything, the 2008 election means that women’s rights are bound to come, and they’re coming fast. Michelle Hu is a News editor for the HiLite. Contact her at [email protected].