Dubai: Human Rights Watch urged Yemen's government yesterday to ban marriages of girls under the age of 18, warning it deprives child brides — often forced to wed much older men — of education and harms their health.
The New York-based group said the political paralysis born of 10 months of protests aimed at ousting President Ali Abdullah Saleh had drawn attention away from the phenomenon of child marriage, but that Yemen's government must address it.
"Girls should not be forced to be wives and mothers," Nadya Khalife, the author of a 54-page report entitled: "How Come You Allow Little Girls to Get Married?", said in a statement.
"The government...needs to show that it has the political will to do this by adopting this law," she said, calling for a law to set 18 as the minimum age for marriage.
Quoting United Nations and government data, HRW said nearly 14 per cent of Yemeni girls were married before the age of 15 and 52 per cent before the age of 18. The group says many Yemeni child-brides-to-be are kept from school when they reach puberty. The report also said bearing children at a young age caused lasting reproductive health problems.
