I hate being the guy who only publishes bad stories, and I promise to try and publish some things that are more uplifting, but I came across this story last week and it has bothered me ever since. I suppose there is a bit of inspiration in the story, but the overall arch is wildly depressing.
And 8-year-old girl, Nojoud Mohammad Nasser, is challenging Yemeni law by seeking a divorce from her husband, 22 years her elder. It is not that divorce is illegal in Yemen, but that Nojoud is too young to seek it. Not too young to be forced into marriage, of course.
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."
One instantly thinks of Lolita, only real and more horrible (“and how she cried- every night, every night- after I had pretended to fall asleep”). It is a remarkable story, and that she even has the ability and intelligence to seek legal recourse at eight is astonishing.
This story, and others like it, have caused a bit of an outcry in Yemen. The Yemen Observer published an bitter editorial about another case, decrying both the government and the civil society organizations which “only care about organizing conferences and seminars at which they spend the funds they have received from the government and from international organizations and donors.” But “on the ground they do nothing at all.”
Now comes news from the Timesthat the Yemeni Parliament has rejected a minimum age for marriage.
The Yemeni Parliament, through its Evaluation and Jurisprudence Committee, rejected a request to amend the personal status law presented by the Women's National Committee (WNC). Women's movements and civil society in Yemen along with 61 Parliament members have advocated a law that legislates a minimum marriage age of 18 for both males and females. However, the Jurisprudence Committee claims there are no legislative grounds to impose such a law based on its understanding of Islam.
I do think that 18 might be extreme for the minimum, but that is a red herring. Clearly, girls being raped at eight or eleven is an absolute horror, and it is good that this is getting attention. I sympathize with the Parliament, though. Yemen has a host of other problems, and might be wary about upsetting older sensibilities.
However, I have no sympathy for Najoud's husband.
Although he is currently in custody, Nujood's husband has rejected her demand to be divorced.
"I will not divorce her, and it is my right to keep her. No need to sleep with her, at least I can have her as a wife. No power can stop me," the husband, Faez Ali Thamer, said.
"It is not a matter of loving her, I don't, but it's just a challenge to her and her uncle who think that they can put me in jail and also the judge has no right to bring me here. How did she dare to complain about me?" he threatened.
We’ll track this story, and hope that through some archaic and insane law she doesn't have to go back to him. I am never one to advocate rough justice, but that guy…
