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In a January 28, 2019 debate on Al-Mamlaka TV (Jordan) about underage marriage, Reem Abu Hassan, the Honorary President of the Institute for the Defense of Victims of Family Violence, said that people shouldn't have many kids if they can't afford to treat them all fairly, and that daughters shouldn't be married off in order to enable the sons to become engineers because the needs of the sons shouldn't come at the expense of the daughters.
Interviewer: If a man has six or seven girls, what should he do? I’m just asking a question. Let’s be reasonable. A man has a job with a limited income, and he has six or seven girls in his household. What can he do…
Reem Abu Hassan: The first question is, why did he have six or seven [children]? Let’s start with that… We should start talking about the birthrate, basically… Under these economic circumstance, people should not have six or seven children.
Interviewer: Five or six children? God can provide for all of humanity… This is a Jordanian tradition. Jordanians take pride in their children. [They say:] “I have six children, and four of them are engineers.” Things like that.
Reem Abu Hassan: So just because my goal is to raise six engineers, I should marry my daughter off at the age of 15? All because I want six boys that are engineers? A person who wants to have boys and girls should be able to provide for all of them in an equal and just fashion, such that [he] can send his son to learn engineering in the same way that he can send his daughter to become a doctor. The situation should not be such that the needs of one side of the family come at the expense of the others. `
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