The controversy has rattled the people of Lincoln, an easygoing college town of 170,000, and revealed a cultural void as vast as the Middle Eastern desert. The police say that not only were the marriages consummated, violating a state law banning sex between anyone over 18 and anyone under 16 regardless of consent, but also that the girls were forced to have sex with their new husbands against their will–a charge the Iraqi men strongly deny. The case even temporarily usurped the hallowed Cornhuskers football team as the hottest topic in town. If some longtime Lincoln residents were taken aback by the arranged marriages in their midst, the Iraqis were equally puzzled by the legal fallout. Such marriages, even among the very young, are common in much of the Muslim world–and those in the city’s close-knit Iraqi community say the girls entered the unions willingly. “I spoke to both girls in the days before the wedding,” says Aeeda Al-Khafaji, a 30-year-old mother of seven who herself wed at 12 in Iraq. “They were both happy and excited. There was no problem at all.” Still, the Iraqis say they’re willing to respect the laws of their new land. “We are shocked by these allegations, and we are going to be much more careful [about the age at which girls marry],” says Mohamed Nassir, head of the Lincoln Islamic Foundation. “The problem is, we really didn’t know what the law was.”
But whose job is it to tell them? As refugees, the Iraqis were relocated by the federal government, which contracts with relief agencies like Catholic Social Services in Lincoln to coordinate housing, financial assistance, medical care and general orientation. The agency would release only a terse statement that “we expect all refugees assisted by our agency to obey all proper civil laws of our country.” But Sanford J. Pollack, the attorney for the girls’ father, says it’s naive to ask refugees–who face cultural and language barriers–to absorb legal rules on their own. “When we bring people to the United States,” Pollack says, “we need to educate them about our laws and customs.”
Now Lincoln’s refugees are getting a crash course, courtesy of the city prosecutor’s office. The husbands, Majed Al-Timimy, 28, and Latif Al-Hussani, 34, have been charged with rape and could face up to 50 years in prison. For his role in arranging the marriage, the girls’ father has been charged with child abuse. Their mother is accused of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Also caught up in the case is 20-year-old Mario Rojas, with whom the elder daughter was found living after her disappearance. He has been charged with statutory rape. All of the accused have entered pleas of not guilty. Lincoln’s district attorney has declined to comment on the case, but one prosecutor, Jodi Nelson, has said that ignorance is no alibi. “You live in our country, you live by our laws,” she says. Donations toward the defense have been received from as far away as Saudi Arabia, where the case has made front-page news.
To experts in Middle Eastern affairs, the situation is frustrating. “What you have here is cultural incomprehension,” says Prof. Rashid Khalidi of the University of Chicago. “And the problem is that the law is not a very subtle instrument in dealing with these kinds of complex cultural issues.” Khalidi calls the uproar in Lincoln “a prime example of a case that begs for a nonlegal resolution.” Perhaps. But for the accused, the decision may rest ultimately with another bit of unfamiliar culture: a jury.
