Sana’a: Yemen’s ministry of human rights is investigating a new child marriage in the north of the country, days after ending the wedding of 12-girl in Taiz.

“We are probing a possible child marriage in the province of Ibb,” said Waleed Abdullah Radman, the general coordinator at the ministry who is responsible for receiving complaints and reports about child marriage from the provinces.

“We will foil the marriage before it happens. These measures are not new, but they got attention due to media interest in child marriage and the ongoing discussion about the issue in the National Dialogue.” he told Gulf News.

In Taiz city, Abdul Hamid Sultan, a local representative of the ministry told Gulf News that he successfully thwarted the wedding of a 12-year girl after receiving a tip-off from a woman.

“On Wednesday [October 30], a woman called me saying that a nine-year old girl is due to be wedded to her cousin in Al Salla district in Taiz,” he said. The girl’s actual age was 12 and she was a primary school student.

Sultan said that after confirming the incident, he contacted the chief security of the district and a local marriage contractor.

“The security official was so cooperative and promised to stop the wedding which was due to take place on Thursday,”

However, the contractor had already sealed the marriage and the official had to convince him to issue a divorce.

Sultan said that groom was in Saudi Arabia days before the wedding and his father and the girl’s father arranged the wedding.

“The groom was angry when he learnt that his father would marry him off to an underage girl. He did not mind divorcing her. He instantly got married to another older bride.”

Gulf News has learnt that the girl returned to her school after getting divorced. Neither the girl nor her father agreed to talk to Gulf News.

The marriage contractor, Saeed Abdul Ghani, appeared to be annoyed by journalists intense interest in the case.

“You must understand that the case is over and the girl did not get married. I told the groom’s father when I saw her that the girl was too young.”

Ghani declined to say whether or not he registered similar child marriages.

Radman said that anti-child marriage campaigns by the ministry of human rights and local NGOS have begun yielding some fruit.

“People are aware of the danger of marrying off their children. In many cases, women take the initiative and call us to report a child marriage.”

The issue of child marriage in Yemen has been recently in the public eye after unconfirmed media reports about the wedding and death of a nine-year old girl in the northern province of Hajja. Many local human rights and womens activists are pressuring the government to issue legislation fixing the legal age for marriage at 18 in order to put an end to underage marriage.