http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/world/middleeast/29marriage.html?_r=3D1&h=
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Tiny Voices Defy Fate of Yemen=92s Girls
(Picture of Nujood Ali)
Nujood Ali, 10, at her parents=92 home in Sana, Yemen. In April, she
demanded a divorce from her abusive 30-year-old husband. A judge
granted her request.
(Picture of Nujood's Father)
Nujood=92s father, Ali Muhammad al-Ahdal, who has 16 children, said
that, with no husband, Nujood could have been abducted.
By ROBERT F. WORTH
Published: June 29, 2008
JIBLA, Yemen =97 One morning last month, Arwa Abdu Muhammad Ali walked
out of her husband=92s house here and ran to a local hospital, where she
complained that he had been beating and ***ually abusing her for eight
months.
That alone would be surprising in Yemen, a deeply conservative Arab
society where family disputes tend to be solved privately. What made
it even more unusual was that Arwa was 9 years old.
Within days, Arwa =97 a tiny, delicate-featured girl =97 had become a
celebrity in Yemen, where child marriage is common but has rarely been
exposed in public. She was the second child bride to come forward in
less than a month; in April, a 10-year-old named Nujood Ali had gone
by herself to a courthouse to demand a divorce, generating a landmark
legal case.
Together, the two girls=92 stories have helped spur a movement to put an
end to child marriage, which is increasingly seen as a crucial part of
the cycle of poverty in Yemen and other third world countries. Pulled
out of school and forced to have children before their bodies are
ready, many rural Yemeni women end up illiterate and with serious
health problems. Their babies are often stunted, too.
The average age of marriage in Yemen=92s rural areas is 12 to 13, a
recent study by Sana University researchers found. The country, at the
southern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, has one of the highest
maternal mortality rates in the world.
=93This is the first shout,=94 said Shada Nasser, a human rights lawyer
who met Nujood, the 10-year-old, after she arrived at the courthouse
to demand a divorce. Ms. Nasser decided instantly to take her case.
=93All other early marriage cases have been dealt with by tribal sheiks,
and the girl never had any choice.=94
But despite a rising tide of outrage, the fight against the practice
is not easy. Hard-line Islamic conservatives, whose influence has
grown enormously in the past two decades, defend it, pointing to the
Prophet Muhammad=92s marriage to a 9-year-old. Child marriage is deeply
rooted in local custom here, and even enshrined in an old tribal
expression: =93Give me a girl of 8, and I can give you a guarantee=94 for
a good marriage.
=93Voices are rising in society against this phenomenon and its
catastrophes,=94 said Shawki al-Qadhi, an imam and opposition member in
Parliament who has tried unsuccessfully to muster sup****t for a legal
ban on child marriage in Yemen in the past. =93But despite rejections of
it by many people and some religious scholars, it continues.=94
The issue first arose because of Nujood, a bright-eyed girl barely
four feet tall. Her ordeal began in February, when her father took her
from Sana, the Yemeni capital, to his home village for the wedding.
She was given almost no warning.
=93I was very frightened and worried,=94 Nujood recalled, speaking in a
soft, childlike voice as she sat cross-legged on the floor in her
family=92s bare three-room home in a slum not far from Sana=92s air****t.
=93I wanted to go home.=94
As she told her story, Nujood gradually gained confidence, smiling
shyly as if she were struggling to hold back laughter. Later, she
removed her veil, revealing her shoulder-length brown hair.
The trouble started on the first night, when her 30-year-old husband,
Faez Ali Thamer, took off her clothes as soon as the light was out.
She ran crying from the room, but he caught her, brought her back and
forced himself on her. Later, he beat her as well.
=93I hated life with him,=94 she said, staring at the ground in front of
her. The wedding came so quickly that no one bothered to tell her how
women become pregnant, or what a wife=92s role is, she added.
Her father, Ali Muhammad al-Ahdal, said he had agreed to the marriage
because two of Nujood=92s older sisters had been kidnapped and forcibly
married, with one of them ending up in jail. Mr. Ahdal said he had
feared the same thing would happen to Nujood, and early marriage had
seemed a better alternative.
A gaunt, broken-looking man, Mr. Ahdal once worked as a street
sweeper. Now he and his family beg for a living. He has 16 children by
two women.
Poverty is one reason so many Yemeni families marry their children off
early. Another is the fear of girls being carried off and married by
force. But most im****tant are cultural tradition and the belief that a
young virginal bride can best be shaped into a dutiful wife, according
to comprehensive study of early marriage published by Sana University
in 2006.
Nujood complained repeatedly to her husband=92s relatives and later to
her own parents after the couple moved back to their house in Sana.
But they said they could do nothing. To break a marriage would expose
the family to shame. Finally, her uncle told her to go to court. On
April 2, she said, she walked out of the house by herself and hailed a
taxi.
It was the first time she had traveled anywhere alone, Nujood
recalled, and she was frightened. On arriving at the courthouse, she
was told the judge was busy, so she sat on a bench and waited.
Suddenly he was standing over her, imposing in his dark robes. =93You=92re
married?=94 he said, with shock in his voice.
Right away, he invited her to spend the night at his family=92s house,
she said, since court sessions were already over for the day. There,
she spent hours watching television, something she had never known in
her family=92s slum apartment, which lacks even running water.
When Nujood=92s case was called the next Sunday, the courtroom was
crowded with re****ters and photographers, alerted by her lawyer. Her
father and husband were also there; the judge had jailed them the
night before to ensure that they would appear in court. (Both were
released the next day.) =93Do you want a separation, or a permanent
divorce?=94 the judge, Muhammad al-Qadhi, asked the girl, after hearing
her testimony and that of her father and her husband.
=93I want a permanent divorce,=94 she replied, without hesitation. The
judge granted it.
Afterward, Ms. Nasser, the lawyer, took Nujood to a celebratory party
at the offices of a local newspaper, where she was showered with dolls
and other toys. Nujood lived with her uncle for a time after the
ruling but then insisted on returning to her father=92s house. =93I have
forgiven him,=94 she said. She swears she will never marry again, and
she wants to become a human rights lawyer, like Ms. Nasser, or perhaps
a journalist.
Despite the victory, Ms. Nasser and other advocates say they are
worried about the lack of legal means to fight early marriage.
Nujood=92s case only reached the court because she took such a wildly
unusual step and happened on a sympathetic judge.
=93We were lucky with this judge,=94 Ms. Nasser said. =93Another judge
migh=
t
not have accepted her in court, and would have asked her father or
brother to come instead,=94 and Nujood would probably still be married
today.
A 1992 Yemeni law set the minimum legal age of marriage at 15. But in
1998 Parliament revised it, allowing girls to be married earlier as
long as they did not move in with their husbands until they reached
***ual maturity.
That change reflected the triumph of northern Yemen=92s more
conservative Islamic culture over the secular and Marxist south after
North and South Yemen united in 1990. In South Yemen, the government
had passed a law in 1979 setting the age of marriage at 16 for women
and 18 for men. An extensive public awareness campaign, including
songs and television spots with titles like =93The Victimized Daughter
of the Tribe=94 and =93Traditions and Rituals=94 helped educate people
abou=
t
the dangers posed by early marriage and pregnancy.
But in Yemen, as in Afghanistan =97 another country where child marriage
is common =97 the fight against Communism ended with the triumph of a
hard-line form of Islam. After war broke out in 1994, Ali Abdullah
Saleh, then North Yemen=92s leader, sent jihadists to fight South Yemen.
Critics say he has become politically indebted to conservative
Islamists.
After Nujood=92s case became public, Ms. Nasser said she received angry
letters from conservative women denouncing her for her role. But she
has also begun receiving calls about girls, some younger than Nujood,
trying to escape their marriages.
One of them was Arwa, who was married last year at the age of 8 here
in the ancient town of Jibla, four hours south of Sana. As with
Nujood=92s case, Arwa=92s situation aroused a legal and social outrage.
Standing outside a relative=92s house here, her hands clasped in front
of her, Arwa described how surprised she was when her father arranged
her marriage to a 35-year-old man eight months ago. Like Nujood, she
did not know the facts of life, she said. The man raped and beat her.
Finally, after months of misery, she ran to a hospital. Employees
there took her to a police station, she said. A local judge, on
receiving her case, briefly jailed the judge who had approved the
marriage contract. Arwa is living with relatives while her case awaits
a resolution. But her relatives rarely let her out of the house,
fearing that her husband, who has refused the judge=92s demands that he
appear in court, may take her again.
Asked what made her flee her husband after so many months, Arwa gazed
up, an intense, defiant expression in her eyes.
=93I thought about it,=94 she said in a very quiet but firm voice. =93I
thought about it.=94
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