10-Year-Old Bride Gets Divorced
Husband, three times her age; walks away unpunished and wealthier.
The Los Angeles Times reports today on a 10-year-old girl from Yemen who successfully divorced her husband, a man in his mid-30s, after suffering physical and sexual abuse.
The girl's father, fearing death if he dishonored his family by asking for a divorce, refused to intervene on his daughter's behalf. The groom had apparently promised not to touch the girl, Nujood Ali, until she reached puberty.
Determined, Ali took matters into her own hands. She borrowed bus money from a sympathetic aunt and arrived at a courthouse in the Yemeni capital, Sana, last April to request a divorce.
Though it's illegal to marry before the age of 15 in Yemen, the court forced Ali to pay approximately $250 (a generous lawyer paid the sum--equivalent to what a poor Yemeni would earn in four months) to her now ex-husband. Yemen lacks a law that prosecutes sexual abuse within a marriage, so though the union was technically illegal, no charges were ultimately brought against the man, who claims Ali's father said she was older, taller and better looking when he agreed to marry the girl.
Shada Nasser, a human rights lawyer and leading Yemeni women's rights activists, helped bring international attention to Ali's case. Sympathizers from around the world have reached out to offer money and educational assistance to the 10 year old, who is contentedly back under her parents' roof. According to the Times, she wants to live like a normal child again, but now dreams of becoming a lawyer, like Nasser, "to be an example for all the other girls."
Ali's case has prompted other underage brides in Yemen to come forward and push for their own divorces.
Discussion
The man is a sexual predator who bought the child ..He bought the child and marry her to make his " fancy " legal as most of them do. The parent's had to know what would happen. Is part of their culture to sell young girls as brides , after the girl is "engage " the parents give authority to the groom and after that whatever happens to the child they don't interfere. The money she had to pay the husband is the bride's price he paid to get her and had to be returned if they split..The culprits are the parents who let her go; they should have waited until she was at least fifteen . A man who marries a child and takes his bride is a sexual predator just for chosing a child and should be castrated.
