http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article5040749
.ece
The children who could be seeking divorce
As a new book lifts the lid on arranged marriages in the Middle East,
more and more children there could be seeking divorce
Yemeni child-bride Nujoud Ali Hasan, 10, with her brothers at her
parents house in Yemeni capital Sana'a
Sonia Verma
The girl sits in the last row of the tiny courtroom, trembling and
holding her mother's hand. When the judge finally calls up her case,
she is biting her fingernails as her lawyer speaks.
Three weeks earlier, Reem's father had married her off to her cousin -
a tall, gaunt man more than three times her age. She says that her
new husband raped her three days after their wedding and beat her
almost every day in the remote village where they lived. She tried to
escape, twice by suicide, and finally by fleeing to her mother's
house in Sana'a, where she has come to court seeking a divorce. Reem
is 12.
When the judge, Mohammed Alqadhi, asks why he should dissolve their
marriage, she replies with an even voice: "If I have to return to my
husband I will kill myself."
Her case, heard earlier this summer in Yemen's capital city, is still
before the courts but Reem's plight has emerged as a high-profile and
crucial test of this conservative Muslim country's treatment of child
brides. In May, Nujood Ali, a 10-year-old girl, became the first
child bride to lobby Yemen's courts successfully for a divorce after
being forced to marry a man nearly 30 years her senior.
Fleeing a forced marriage
Sameem Ali, forced to marry at 13, wants to help the hundreds still
trapped. Read her story
Background
`My family still cross the street to avoid me'
Single? Why not try an arranged marriage?
Teachers may get power to halt forced marriages
Background
Scars and bruises of a girl who wanted to be free
Police worker 'banned for telling truth'
`I felt invisible and that no one cared about me'
The Britons who are forced into marriage
Her case captured headlines around the world. In the wake of her
victory, Yemeni judges and lawmakers vowed to stamp out the
widespread practice of early marriage. Emboldened by Nujood's
victory, a handful of other child brides have since stepped forward,
demanding an end to marriages brokered by their families to win
dowries or forge tribal alliances. But now the same court that
awarded Nujood her freedom is failing to uphold the precedent set by
her case. It seems that tribal customs still prevail over Yemen's
official laws that set the age of marital consent at 15.
"Some extremists have complained about Nujood's case," says Shada
Nasser, the outspoken Yemeni lawyer who represented Nujood and now
three other child brides, including Reem, in their quest for
divorce. "They think the judges should not interfere with tribal
life."
Across the Middle East, marriage is seen as a rite of passage to
adulthood, and, for women particularly, is still viewed as the
gateway to independence, financial security and respect. But it seems
that Middle Eastern women are beginning to find their voice. This
week it emerged that a book exposing the matchmaking horrors visited
upon one 29-year-old Egyptian pharmacist, Ghada Abdel Aal, by her
family has become a bestseller and her blog "Wanna-b-a-bride" a
lifeline for some of the 15 million girls who, she says "are
pressurised by their society to get married".
For Nujood, life is still poverty-stricken, but nevertheless she is
optimistic about the future. I meet her and her family in their
filthy two-room flat in the slums on the outskirts of Sanaa. She is
proud of the publi- city that her case garnered, in part because she
hopes it will pave the way for other child brides to seek similar
justice. "I want other girls to take courage from me," she says,
sitting cross-legged on the floor. Her father, Ali Mohammed Ahdal,
arranged her marriage in February last year. The street sweeper was
struggling to support his two wives and 16 children, most of whom
begged on the streets. Nujood was the only child who attended school
at the local mosque. He arranged for her to marry Faez Ali Thamer, a
motorcycle taxi driver who promised to protect her in exchange for
her hand.
"I did it for her own wellbeing," Ahdal tells me, crouched on a
mattress on the dusty floor of the room where his whole family
sleeps. Nujood was terrified to leave her parents' house, but she
believed them when they told her marriage meant that she would be
able to finish school and visit her family whenever she wished.
Her parents claim that they had agreed to the marriage on the
condition that Thamer would wait until Nujood passed puberty before
he had sex with her. Nujood said she didn't know what sex was until
her wedding night, when her husband dragged her on to his mattress.
She managed to fend him off that first night, but on the third night
he raped her. "He made me sleep with him every night after that. I
didn't know what I was supposed to do. I was so ashamed to remove my
clothing."
She says his family beat her because she couldn't keep up with her
chores of fetching firewood and cooking bread on a heavy iron pan.
School was out of the question. "I was begging to return to my
family's house. I was so lonely and cried every day," she says.
A week after she married, she convinced her husband to take her to
Sanaa to visit her family. Out of his earshot, she told them of the
abuse she suffered. Without the cash or clout to take his daughter
back, her father said she would simply have to endure it. Later that
night, an aunt took her aside and told her that her only hope was to
seek a divorce. A few days later, when her parents were away, she
took the money they had given her to buy breakfast for her siblings
and boarded a bus for the courthouse, on the other side of town.
She waited on a bench outside the judge's office until he emerged
from the courtroom. When she told him that she wanted a divorce he
was shocked. "I said, `You are married? I don't believe it'," recalls
Alqadhi. He sent the police to arrest her father and husband and
threw them in jail. The judge took Nujood into protective custody, in
his own home. The easiest way for her to end her marriage was to have
it annulled and, for that, her husband was entitled to financial
compensation. He was demanding a sum of £125 - an absolute fortune
for Nujood's family. Nasser agreed to take on Nujood's case free of
charge and paid Thamer out of her own pocket.
In the wake of Nujood's case, an influential group of Yemeni
lawmakers has lobbied to raise the legal age of marriage from 15 to
18 for both men and women. Nujood has now enrolled in school. She has
just finished year 2 and dreams of becoming a lawyer or a
journalist. "I will never marry again," she says. Her family has
received donations from sympathisers around the world, transforming
her from a street beggar into a minor celebrity with her own mobile
phone and a possible movie deal.
For Reem, however, the future is more uncertain. Back at the
courthouse, it is unclear whether the precedent set by Nujood will
hold. Alqadhi granted her a divorce, even though Yemeni law
technically protected her husband from prosecution. When Nasser
presented the case of 12-year-old Reem, the judge seemed more
reticent. "This case is different," he tells me. "She is older and
has married into her family. I don't want to just end the marriage, I
want to solve the problem." It was here that, earlier in the day, he
had tried in vain to mediate a discussion between Reem, her parents
and her husband. Her husband stomped out. Reem left in tears. Her
mother and father had a shouting match. Her father says he arranged
her marriage to protect Reem from the influence of her mother, from
whom he is separated, and whom he accuses of prostitution. Her mother
argues that he married her to avoid paying child support.
Alqadhi later told Nasser that he would postpone his ruling until
Reem turned 15, ironically the legal age of consent for marriage,
when she could make a mature decision about divorce. Until then, she
has been ordered to live with her maternal grandfather. "I came here
because I thought this man would help me, but I am leaving with
nothing," says Reem, twisting the sleeves of her black abaya. "I wish
I was like Nujood."
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