8-year-old girl’s divorce is finalized while a law to prevent early marriage stalls [Archives:2008/1147/Front Page]
April 17 2008
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Eight-year-old Nojoud is now safe after an anonymous donor paid her 30-year-old husband to divorce her. Although this chapter of her life has closed, there are many other Yemeni girls who still suffer from early marriage and its consequences. Feminist groups in Yemen are urging the Parliament to legally define a minimum marriage age. However, there is a long way to go before girls like Nojoud can be free from detrimental early marriages.
SANA'A, 16 April ) A few months ago, Nojoud was an average 8-year-old girl from a poor family. Then Nojoud's father decided to marry her off to a man more than three times her age. Overnight, Nojoud became a wife, enduring physical and sexual abuse for two months until she ran away with the help of her uncle and filed a court case against her father and her husband.
On April 15, with support from her lawyer Shatha Mohammed Nasser and Judge Abud Al-Khaleaq Ghowber, Nojoud paid her way out of marriage with YR 100,000 from an anonymous donor in the Emirates and happily became an 8-year-old divorcee.
“This was the first time a girl came to us for a divorce. We are going to do our best to push the parliament to change the marriage law,” said Judge Ghowber.
“I am so happy to be free and I will go back to school and will never think of getting married again,\” Nojoud said joyfully. \””It is a good feeling to be rid of my husband and his bad treatment.””
She said that she felt lucky that she did not have to continue in such a marriage and a live out a life similar to her sisters
