Sana’a: A 12-year-old Yemeni girl has fled to the police in Taiz province, southern Yemen, to seek divorce from her 55-year old husband who allegedly beat her, a local activist told Gulf News.
Rowaida is the latest victim of child marriage in Yemen, which is common due to the crippling poverty in the country.
Ali Al Sarari, a lawyer and the representative of SEAJ Child Protection Organisation, said that the father married off his daughter to the man to settle his debt and the girl told investigators that she was exposed to physical and sexual violence.
“The husband beat her and imprisoned her in his house. We got a promise from the police that they would not force her to return to the husband’s house,” he said.
Rowaida’s mother was against the marriage from the start and has been working to help her daughter divorce her husband, Al Sarari said.
“The girl is currently taking refuge at the juvenile centre to protect her from her father who wanted her to go back to her husband.”
Many similar appalling stories of Yemeni girls getting married at the age of 11 have triggered national and international condemnation, pressuring the government to fix the minimum marriage age. Human Rights Minister Houria Mashour says that some powerful tribal and religious figures have resisted endorsing the bill in parliament.
To protect vulnerable girls, activists bypassed the parliament and included a law fixing the age at 18 as one of the agreements made at the National Dialogue Conference.
For the last couple of years, Gulf News has highlighted many cases of local activists thwarting child marriages in Yemen. Earlier this year, police in the province of Ibb broke into the house of an eight-year-old bride and foiled the wedding after receiving appeals from relatives and human right activists.
