Thursday, June 12, 2008

Yemen child bride Nujood Ali gets divorce


The 10-year-old was married off to a man in his 30s who abused her. She made her way to a courthouse, found a lawyer and broke free.

By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 11, 2008
SANA, YEMEN -- The little girl was waist-high, so small that the lawyers, clerks and judges hurrying through the courthouse almost missed her.

As lunchtime arrived and the crowds of noisy men and women cleared away, a curious judge asked her what she was doing sitting alone on a bench.

"I came to get a divorce," 10-year-old Nujood Ali told the jurist.

Her impoverished parents had married her off to a man more than three times her age, who beat her and forced her to have sex, she explained. When she told her father and mother that she wanted out of the marriage, they refused to help. So an aunt provided her with bus money to travel to court and seek a divorce.

Full story here

4 comments:

Sarah Al-Habib said...

SubhanAllah!! .. So sad, I'm speechless.

Ahmed Eid said...

wow...subhanallah

mohammas said...

subhanallah...why do people like him exist in our society :(??

Arif Shaikh said...

This girl is seriously a hero, though. With her courage, she has brought much-needed attention to this issue, which is not isolated to her case. Very sad, indeed though. There is certainly much work to be done.