I see your £10, and raise you one daughter

Courtesy of Dhimmi Watch, the appalling story of a Pakistani man who gave away his daughter after losing a game of poker:

Rasheeda, 17, said she has filed applications with the police and a local councillor asking them to prevent Lal Haider, 45, from taking her to his home.

Her mother, Nooran said her husband racked up a debt of 10,000 rupees ($151) to Haider playing cards.

"My husband didn't have money to pay, and instead he told Lal Haider that he could take Rasheeda when she grows up," she said.

As Robert Spencer points out, this reflects the common Islamic attitude towards women - they are items of property. It may be that the men involved were not particularly devout - gambling certainly isn't permitted under Islamic law. But nonetheless, they are acting in accordance with a culture entirely based around Islam.

I'm sure that this kind of thing goes on in Britain too. I have in the past been told, by a British-born Pakistani ex-Muslim, that there are catalogues that circulate round the Muslim community here, listing the details of women in Pakistan. When a man sees a woman he likes in the catalogue, he sends her father or brother some cash, and ships her over to be his wife.

In Islam, a woman is a chattel, and nothing more.