Childhood across cultures Learning objective: To understand how children’s lives vary across cultures

In Belonging, Sameem tells how she was abused by her family, taken to Pakistan at the age of 13 and forced to marry a man who would rape her repeatedly. She was pregnant by the time she was 14, but at the age of 17 she escaped her family and, a few months later, a kidnap attempt by armed men hired to bring her back. Years later she was told that a 5cm tumour had lodged itself in her head. If it were a novel, you would think it far-fetched, but the horror of her forced marriage happened exactly as Sameem tells it and her story is not unique. What is unique is that she has broken a taboo to expose the abuse suffered by many young people in Britain.

Write about how you would feel, if you were aged 11 and married to a man who was aged 59

Amid an uproar over an adult man’s marriage to an 8-year-old girl, Saudi Arabia will begin regulating child marriage, the BBC reports. The country’s justice minister wants to end the “arbitrary” process, he said, though he didn’t say such matches would be banned. A court upheld the marriage provided the husband—whose age has been reported as 47 and 60—doesn’t have sex with the girl until after she reaches puberty. Sunni law practiced in Saudi Arabia lets fathers marry their kids off to anyone they choose. Poverty motivates many, say human-rights activists; families have been accused of essentially selling their daughters into marriage. The 8- year-old’s father apparently wanted the dowry in order to repay debts, observers say. She isn’t living with the man and, and she can seek a divorce after reaching puberty, a judge said. Read and discuss Questions 1.Would you seek a divorce and why? 2.Why do you think the parents of the 8 year old girl allowed this marriage to take place?

What do these images tell us about children in other cultures?

They took us as wives straightaway. We had to cook for them. If a cow was killed, we had to cook it...When they came back, they would eat and drink, then they would call for you. They were so many. It was so painful...If they went to attack somewhere or to loot, there was always someone who stayed behind. Then he’d call you. If you refused, they used sticks to whip you...We mostly stayed in the forest but sometimes we had to go with them and carry what they looted...They all had sex with me. I don’t know how many people had sex with me. A man would come, then another and another. I wasn’t even the youngest. Some girls were even younger than me. Even the commanders called for you. You couldn’t refuse...They said they’d kill you if you ran away. Some people fled and didn’t come back. We didn’t know if they’d got away or had been killed." "I remember the day I decided to join the mayi-mayi. It was after an attack on my village. My parents, and also my grand-father were killed and I was running. I was so scared. I lost everyone; I had nowhere to go and no food to eat. In the mayi-mayi I thought I would be protected, but it was hard. I would see others die in front of me. I was hungry very often, and I was scared. Sometimes they would whip me, sometimes very hard. They used to say that it would make me a better fighter. One day, they whipped my [11-year-old] friend to death because he had not killed the enemy. Also, what I did not like is to hear the girls, our friends, crying because the soldiers would rape them. " Childhood soilders

You tube clips How children are raised across cultures Aids Orphans A A Child workers Children and domestic violence

Tasks 1.Visit: Or any other relevant website 2. Open Publisher – Go to brochures 3. Find stories like the ones discussed and complete a brochure showing how children are treated across various cultures. Use images in your brochure