How refreshing it is to read Laiq Ahmed Atif’s contributions to Times of Malta. He regularly and, quite rightly, strongly condemns extremism in Islam, especially in the September 12 article that was entitled Extremism Has No Place In Islam.

However, perhaps I missed him condemning child ‘marriages’ in any one of his articles. The newspaper’s Yemeni story, in World Briefs, running the following day, of an eight – yes eight – year-old girl dying on her “wedding night” after intercourse with her 40-year-old “husband” makes one’s hair stand on end.

One has to admit that this is legalised paedophilia. There is no other word for it. Although it is reported that the little girl was taken to a clinic where medics tried to save her life, nothing is mentioned in the story about any action being taken against the “husband’ for murder.

Why is this allowed in Islam? Why is barbaric female circumcision allowed to be practised so widely? Have these countries signed the United Nations Charter of Human Rights?

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