AUSTRALIAN PRAYER NETWORK NEWSLETTER – INTERNATIONAL NEWS 14th OCTOBER 2013
THE OFFICE OF THE AUSTRALIAN PRAYER NETWORK IS CURRENTLY CLOSED FOR A PERIOD OF 6 WEEKS TO ENABLE STAFF TO UNDERTAKE STRATEGIC PRAYER ASSIGNMENTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND TO TAKE A SHORT BREAK AT THE END TO RECOVER FROM THE INTENSE PERIOD OF ACTIVITY AND PRAYER. PRE-PREPARED EDITIONS OF INTERNATIONAL NEWS WILL CONTINUE TO BE PUBLISHED DURING THIS TIME BUT IN AN ABRIDGED FORM. INTERNATIONAL NEWS WILL RESUME FULL PUBLICATION ON MONDAY 11TH NOVEMBER.
- POPE TELEPHONES WOMAN WHO REFUSED ABORTION
-
DEATH OF EIGHT YEAR OLD YEMINI BRIDE CAUSES ANGER
POPE TELEPHONES WOMAN WHO REFUSED ABORTION
Anna Romano couldn’t believe her ears when she picked up the phone. On the other end of the telephone was Pope Francis himself, who called to offer to baptize her baby after she refused to have an abortion. “I was just so surprised that he had telephoned me. He said that he had read my letter and he wanted to speak to me personally about it and reassure me that someone was worried about me,” Anna, hailing from Arezzo near Florence. Feeling humiliated, betrayed, and that she had no one else to turn to, Anna wrote to Pope Francis a few months ago about her crisis situation. She revealed that she was pregnant with the child of an already married man who had demanded she abort.
In her letter, Anna told the Pope that she would not have an abortion and that she had told the married man to “get out of my life.” Anna never dreamed of a reply. Then, when she was on holiday, she received the surprising call. “At the beginning I thought it was a joke, but then he referred to the letter, which only my best friend and my parents knew about,” Anna said. “We were only on the phone for a few minutes but my heart was filled with joy, as we spoke I was rubbing my tummy at the same time,” she told the Daily Mail. “I would never have imagined that the Pope would pick up a telephone and call me and speak to me as if I was a dear friend.”
Source: Daily Mail
DEATH OF EIGHT YEAR OLD YEMINI BRIDE CAUSES ANGER
Yemeni activists have called for action after an eight-year-old child bride died of genital tears and internal bleeding on the first night of her arranged marriage. The groom was five times her age according to Kuwaiti daily Al Watan. The death occurred in the tribal area of Hardh in north-western Yemen, which borders Saudi Arabia. Kuwaiti bloggers are now calling for the girl’s family and groom to be punished, Gulf News reports. Blogger Angry Man posted that the groom was “an animal who deserved to be punished severely for his crime”. Another blogger, Sad, posted that the marriage shouldn’t have occurred, “even if some tribes believe that it is a good custom”.
Activists hope the case would be used to help put an end to the practice of marrying very young girls. In 2008, a Yemeni eight-year-old bride had her marriage annulled by a court after running away from her husband and filing for divorce. But in 2009, a Yemeni law that set the minimum age of a bride at 17 was repealed as lawmakers deemed it un-Islamic. In 2010, a 12-year-old died three days after her marriage from internal bleeding, and a 13-year-old died during labour. A video released in July by human rights organisation Middle East Research Institute shows an escaped 11-year-old bride-to-be who spoke out after her family was forcing her into an arranged marriage.
Source: Gulf News