Daughters for debts
Got daughter? Got dough!
Are you a father with financial problems? Are you father to a girl? Well, financial relief is just as easy as selling your underage daughter (8 yrs old!) into matrimonial slavery.
As disgusting as that sounds, it happened and it is not a one time occurrence.
Arranged marriages involving pre-adolescents are occasionally reported in the Arabian Peninsula. Many more go unreported.
Imagine you're an 8 year old girl and your father has sold you into "marriage" to an older man to pay off debts. What do you do? Where do you turn? If you turn to your immediate family you're not likely to get help and even if you do, you can expect a fight in court. What about when you turn to the courts for help? The results vary.
Saudi court rejects plea to annul 8-year-old girl's marriage to 58-year-old man
In one case reported on in the Telegraph, the mother is fighting the Saudi court that rejected the plea to annul an 8-year-old girl's marriage to a 58-year-old man. The marriage contract was signed by the father and the groom. The court said that the case should wait until the girl reaches puberty. The case can wait and yet the marriage couldn't?
It all comes down to finances. The father agreed to marry off his daughter for an advance dowry of 30,000 riyals ($8,000). Facing financial problems, the father is said to have pursued this agreement as an answer to the "hard times" he was facing. When the mother fought against this business arrangement of selling her daughter into marriage to pay the father's debts, the father was in court and he remained adamant in favor of the marriage.
The mother will appeal the verdict at the court of cassation, the supreme court in the ultraconservative kingdom of Unayzah. Unayzah applies Islamic Sharia law in its courts.
Link to story in Telegraph.co.uk
8-year-old girl asks for divorce in court and is granted relief
In a related story, an eight-year-old Yemen girl decided to go the Sana’a West Court to prosecute her father, who forced her to marry a 30-year-old man.
The judge in this case, Muhammed Al-Qathi, showed compassionate wisdom paired with knowledgeable application of Yemeni law. Even though according to Yemini law Nojoud cannot prosecute, as she is underage, judge Muhammed Al-Qathi heard her complaint and subsequently ordered the arrests of both her father and husband.
Nojoud Muhammed Nasser will not be returned to the family who abandoned her to rape and degradation. She is safe now.
From the Yemen Times:
Nojoud Muhammed Nasser arrived at court by herself on Wednesday, April 2, looking for a judge to handle her case against her father, Muhammed Nasser, who forced her to marry Faez Ali Thamer, a man 22 years her senior. The child also asked for a divorce, accusing her husband of sexual and domestic abuse.Is there any way to help?
According to Yemeni law, Nojoud cannot prosecute, as she is underage. However, court judge Muhammed Al-Qathi heard her complaint and subsequently ordered the arrests of both her father and husband.
“My father beat me and told me that I must marry this man, and if I did not, I would be raped and no law and no sheikh in this country would help me. I refused but I couldn’t stop the marriage,” Nojoud Nasser told the Yemen Times. “I asked and begged my mother, father, and aunt to help me to get divorced. They answered, ‘We can do nothing. If you want you can go to court by yourself.’ So this is what I have done,” she said.
Nasser said that she was exposed to sexual abuse and domestic violence by her husband. “He used to do bad things to me, and I had no idea as to what a marriage is. I would run from one room to another in order to escape, but in the end he would catch me and beat me and then continued to do what he wanted. I cried so much but no one listened to me. One day I ran away from him and came to the court and talked to them.”
“Whenever I wanted to play in the yard he beat me and asked me to go to the bedroom with him. This lasted for two months," added Nasser. "He was too tough with me, and whenever I asked him for mercy, he beat me and slapped me and then used me. I just want to have a respectful life and divorce him.”
Nasser’s uncle, who does not want to reveal his name, is following the case now as her guardian. According to her uncle, after Muhammed Nasser, the girl's father, lost his job as a garbage truck driver in Hajjah, he became a beggar, and soon after suffered from mental problems.
So far, no accusations have been made against her father, who was later released due to health problems, or Nasser's husband, who will remain in jail for further investigation.
“So far there is no case and no charges, as Nojoud arrived by herself to court asking just for a divorce,“ said Shatha Ali Nasser, a lawyer in the Supreme Court who is following Nojoud Nasser’s story.
Shatha Ali Nasser confirmed that item number 15 in Yemeni civil law reads that “no girl or boy can get married before the age of 15." However, this item was amended in 1998 so parents could make a contract of marriage between their children even if they are under the age of 15. But the husband cannot be intimate with her until she is ready or mature,” said Nasser.“This law is highly dangerous because it brings an end to a young girl’s happiness and future fruitful life. Nojoud did not get married, but she was raped by a 30-year old man.”
Nasser confirmed that Nojoud Nasser’s case is not the first of its kind in Yemen, but it is the first time that a girl went to court by herself to ask for a divorce.
Link to Yemen Times
Yes. The more we speak out, the more girls can be protected. Here is how you can speak out:
- Donate to Human Rights Watch
- Support bill HR 3175 in the United States House of Representatives, a bill to create programs to protect girls in developing countries from child marriages.
- Add this to your list of New Years resolutions: write your congressman to express your outrage that innocent children are being forced into marriage against their will.
Comments