Student Union
- By Parth Vohra
Girls As Young As Infants Married by Parents
Even before you finish reading this sentence, a girl-child will have gotten married in some part of the world illegally, new research reported Tuesday.
Nearly 1 in every 4 seconds, or 20,000 girls younger than 18 are married each day illegally.
Like the 12-year-old girl who was raped by her cousin and forced by her aunt to marry him, according to the report.
The research marks the International Day of the Girl on October 11. Child marriage is a human rights violation and a form of violence against girls, according to the report by Save the Children and the World Bank.
“I was crying as they carried out the marriage rituals,” the 12-year-old said. “My aunt told me to do whatever my husband told me.” Her husband was 23.
“Child marriage is a harmful practice that disproportionately affects millions of girls each year, with negative impacts on their health, education, and opportunities in life.”
Girls -- and boys -- who marry younger than 18 are not ready for marriage, sex or reproduction, the report says, and seldom complete secondary schooling. Child marriages are often forced and often happen between a young girl and an older man without consent.
Most countries have set 18 as the minimum legal age for girls marrying, but governments still grapple with enforcing child-marriage laws because of competing cultural and religious laws. In many countries worldwide, girls can be married younger than 18 if their parents or courts consent.
That is a huge driver of illegal child marriages, says Carolyn Miles, president and CEO of Save the Children.
Another driver of girl-child marriage is the attitude of parents toward their daughters, Miles told VOA StudentU.
Parents marry off their daughters way sooner than they are ready because women are valued economically less than men. Parents typically invest more in the education of their sons more than their daughters, resulting in a cycle of oppression for women, says Miles.
In parts of Ethiopia, the practice of female genital mutilation or circumcision (FGM/C) is common to enhance a girl's marriageability.
"FGM/C is seen as a pre-requisite for marriage, not only to safeguard virginity, but to enhance popular feminine virtues: the qualities of a wife and mother," according to Girls Not Brides, a global partnership of more than 800 organizations from more than 95 countries "committed to ending child marriage and enabling girls to fulfil their potential."
“We will not see a world where girls and boys have the same opportunities to succeed in life until we eradicate child marriage,” Miles said in a press release. “When a girl gets married too young, her role as a wife and a mother takes over. She is more likely to leave school, she may become pregnant and suffer abuse.”
But, it's not only the attitude of parents about their daughters that needs to change, Miles said. The bias that boys have against their female classmates and family members needs to improve.
Two-thirds of Grade 4 boys in parts of Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire said they believe that boys are smarter than girls, according to a Save the Children survey. Nearly 40 percent of Grade 4 boys in the U.S. agreed with them. Half of the parents of American fourth-graders said that the father is the head of the house.
Child marriage can be reduced if laws are implemented and strengthened. Education and economic opportunities for girls should be encouraged by parents, Miles said.
The 12-year-old escaped the chains of her husband and aunt with the help of her uncle, and ended at a safe house supported by Save the Children in Dakar.
She was 12. And five months pregnant.
Today she has a baby named Aida. She has completed a sewing course with the help of center.
The eradication of child marriage by 2030 is among the United Nation's sustainable development goals.
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- By Stella Hsu
Reports of visa checks, deportations worry Chinese STEM students in US
Geopolitical tensions and growing competition in tech between the United States and China appear to be spilling over into academia despite commitments from the world’s two biggest economies to boost people-to-people exchanges.
The United States remains the top choice for Chinese students seeking to study abroad with nearly 300,000 studying in American colleges and universities during the 2022-2023 school year. But reports of some cases that students and professors are facing extra scrutiny while passing through immigration and the deportation of others are raising concerns.
For Chen Xiaojin, a doctoral student studying semiconductor materials at a university in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, it has been six years since she returned to her hometown of Beijing.
At first, it was the COVID-19 pandemic that kept her from going home. But over the past two years, she has been deterred by accounts of Chinese students majoring in science and engineering being required to reapply for their visas upon returning to China.
She also says she is worried by reports over the past six months of Chinese students being deported, even at nearby Dulles Airport.
"My current research is relatively sensitive, and my boss [adviser] is getting funds from the U.S. Department of Defense, making it even more sensitive,” she told VOA. "I am afraid that I won't be able to return after I go back [to China]."
Chen says that if she did return to China, she would have to apply for a new visa.
In a report late last month, Bloomberg said it had found at least 20 Chinese students and scholars with valid visas who were deported at U.S. Customs since November and barred from reentry. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency does not release relevant data.
Immigration attorney Dan Berger represented one Chinese student who was deported late last year. He tells VOA Mandarin that the student studied biological sciences at Yale University and was about to complete her doctorate.
She visited her family in China and got a new visa but was deported by customs at Dulles Airport and barred from reentering the country for five years. Berger said he did not see anything suspicious in the transcript of the conversation between the student and the customs officer.
"We have seen what seems like a pattern over the last six months of Chinese PhD students being turned around…. more than I've seen in quite a while," he said.
Matthew Brazil, a fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, said neither country seems willing to explain the situation. However, he believes that in most cases, the United States must have valid reasons for blocking visa holders from entering the country.
In some cases, the student’s background may not match what is written on the visa application. In other cases, customs agents may also find something that the State Department missed, and once they see it, they are responsible for taking action.
"I wish the Chinese side would be specific about their students who were refused entry,” he said. “The fact that both sides are mum on details and that the Chinese side is engaged with the usual angry rhetoric means that each has security concerns. And that says to me that there was good reason for the U.S. to stop these particular applicants."
Brazil also sees a connection between the entry denials and export control regulations issued by the United States in October 2022 that restrict China's ability to obtain advanced computing chips, develop and maintain supercomputers, and manufacture advanced semiconductors.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is one of the law enforcement agencies authorized to investigate violations of export control regulations, he said.
"Beijing's intelligence agencies are known to focus attention on PRC [People's Republic of China] students and scientists headed abroad who study or work on dual-use technologies controlled under the Export Administration Act — compelling Chinese students and scientists to report on what they've learned when they return to China on holiday,” he said. “This has been true for decades."
Bill Drexel, a fellow for the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, said the U.S. government did find some cases where students tried to steal strategic technology for China.
"I think it would both not be surprising that they found some really questionable or incriminating evidence for some students,” he said. “It would also not be surprising if, in their hunt for really solid evidence, they also may have made some mistakes on other students.”
Drexel adds that “it’s just kind of an unfortunate fact of the time that we live in and the tactics that the CCP uses when it comes to these measures."
In a post on X in early May, U.S. ambassador to China Nicholas Burns tried to dispel concerns about visas and entry to the United States for students and scholars. In the post, he said "99.9% of Chinese students holding visas encounter no issues upon entering the United States.”
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal Monday, Burns said it is China that is making it impossible to promote people-to-people ties. Burns told the Journal that students attending events sponsored by the United States in China have been interrogated and intimidated.
He also said that since U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s leader Xi Jinping held their summit in San Francisco last year, China’s Ministry of State Security and other agencies had interfered with Chinese citizens’ participation at some 61 events.
At a regular briefing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning dismissed those accusations, saying that they did not “reflect reality" and that went against key understandings reached by both countries’ presidents in San Francisco.
“The United States, under the pretext of 'national security,' unjustifiably harasses, interrogates, and deports Chinese students in the U.S., causing them significant harm and creating a severe chilling effect,” Mao said. “The image of the United States in the minds of the Chinese people fundamentally depends on the actions of the United States itself.”
Drexel said he believes Burns’ comments about visas and students' willingness to study in the U.S. still ring true.
“On balance, it's still the case that American universities are overwhelmingly warm towards Chinese students and want them in large numbers," he said.
However, Berger, the immigration lawyer, is concerned about the chilling effect recent cases involving Chinese students could have.
"In general, we are being more careful about advising Chinese graduate students in STEM fields about traveling and letting them know that there is some small risk,” he said.
Even though the risk is small, it does seem to be real at the moment, he said.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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