“My father forced me into marriage, when I was a child, I spent my whole day playing with the neighbors’ children.” With this phrase, Nujood recounts her suffering with her father, who forced her to marry when she was a thirteen-year-old child.
She says: "I found myself wearing the white dress by force although I was the one who used to spend my day playing and wandering in the 'Mahawa' of the marginalized neighborhood where I live."
Nujoud Ahmed (23 years old), from Taiz Governorate, was forced by her father ten years ago to marry a man three times her age. She suddenly found that she became a bride and wife who did not understand matters of marital life, and did not know anything about her obligations, to spend her days in the marital home searching about the corners where she can enjoy her childhood.
Nujoud said in her interview with "Khuyut": "I got married when I was a child, I do not know the meaning of marriage or how to deal with my husband, but I was afraid of him, because he is much older than me," commenting that she would cry if he did not give her "gift" (sweets).
Brides in the death trap
Underage marriage is a widespread phenomenon in Yemeni communities, and the war has greatly expanded its scope, especially among the marginalized, as parents began to drive their young girls into a death trap; repudiation of their responsibility towards them or greediness for their dowry.
A recent study on the marginalized, issued last September 2021 by the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies, was limited to the governorates of Taiz, Sana’a and Aden, and included a data matrix that showed the percentages of child marriages between the age group of 10-18 years. The figures showed that the percentage of the number of marginalized girls in Taiz city only was 17.9% in 2014, and in the capital, Sana'a, by 27%, until 2020, and in the interim capital of the internationally recognized government, Aden, by 6%.
The study revealed that there are high rates of early marriage among the marginalized in all governorates of Yemen, especially during the war years, while UNICEF estimates that more than 4 million children from all segments of society were forcibly married in the country in 2021.
Serious indications
Given that marital life is dominated by many family obligations and responsibilities that a minor girl cannot bear, the age of marriage may be set according to personal status laws in various countries of the world, at the age of 18, when the girl becomes eligible for marriage.
In Yemen, the Personal Status Law issued by a republican decree in 1992 sets the minimum age for marriage at the age of 15, and it is not permissible to marry a young male or female before reaching this age, as stipulated in Article No. (15) of the law. However, this law is not applied, especially among the marginalized groups.
Moreover, deaths rates among Yemeni women in general increased to more than 500 deaths per 100,000 births between 2019 and 2020, and there is no statistics for marginalized women who are married at an early age, and are exposed to complications of pregnancy and childbirth, which may lead to losing their lives, but they represent a higher percentage much than this official statistic stated as seen by "Khuyut".
Nujood talks about her suffering during her marriage, which lasted only three months, saying: "I suffered in that short period a lot which was full of disputes and problems with my husband, and my pregnancy in the second month of my marriage doubled this suffering a lot." As her slender body of 35 kg did not help her to bear the burdens of pregnancy, she says: "I was very tired and my health deteriorated during pregnancy and childbirth. I am still suffering until now because of childbirth, and from the day I was born, I considered childbirth (the grievance of death)."
Motives and reasons
There are many reasons for the marriage of minors among the marginalized category, as Dr. Yasser Al-Silwi, Professor of Sociology at Taiz University says that the state of extreme poverty, marginalization and the spread of ignorance among this group are the most serious reasons that push them to marry off their girls before they reach the legal age, unaware of the risks of that marriage.
He added in an interview with "Khuyut", that the marginalized are the poorest segments of Yemeni society, which is a very destitute class and lacks the most basic services, which in turn negatively affected their lives and pushed them to marry off their girls to relieve their living burdens without recognizing the risks associated with it.
Abdul Ghani Aqlan, head of the Association for Development for Integration and one of the group’s sons, agrees with this view, as he believes that poverty and material needs are what drive fathers to marry off their underage daughters, because they consider that a girl’s marriage is a form of arranging the financial situation by taking advantage of the dowry received by the father in exchange for his daughter’s marriage, in addition to the low level of awareness of the dangers and consequences of early marriage on the part of parents, noting that the relevant organizations and institutions should work to educate them in this aspect given there are major shortcomings in social awareness.
Aqlan explained to "Khuyut", saying: "The lack of association of marginalized girls with education, professional skills and business management, and the absence of small projects for them like other women in society, made them unemployed and suffering from an emotional void in the eyes of some families, which prompts them to marry off their daughters at an early age," He stressed on the need for economic empowerment and the scientific rehabilitation of marginalized women by civil society organizations and the concerned authorities.
According to a report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, obtained by Khuyut, poverty and insecurity are among the root causes of child, early and forced marriage, especially in rural areas and among the poorest communities, who often view marriage as a means of ensuring the economic sufficiency of girls and women who do not have access to resources, and those who live in situations of extreme poverty, indicating that child marriage may have economic advantages, such as a lower dowry for younger brides.
failed marriage
Marriage must be built on understanding and parity in order to achieve its goals, the highest of which is to create a state of stability, and this often does not happen when a girl marries before she reaches the legal age.
Al-Silwi says: “the relationship between the spouses in this case is not harmonious, and great problems occur between families which lead to their disintegration and the emergence of divorce, which puts the girls in a new cycle of suffering, and becomes a burden on their family, and a vicious cycle of poverty and marginalization is formed among the members of the group. He added: "This does not help the marginalized to change their status and achieve social mobility so that they integrate better in the society."
He points out that the young girl is at age when she cannot do much family care or bear family burdens, and she is not physically, health, or socially adapted; Consequently, the girl's marriage lacks stability, and the marital relationship prevails in a state of suffering and tension, which in turn affects the nature of social life among marginalized families in general.
Nujood remembers that she suffered a lot to obtain her right to divorce from her husband, who is not equal to her in age. She says: “I always had problems with my husband who used to beat and abuse me, and I ran away from my family’s house while I was pregnant, and I could not continue with him, and my father also used to beat me and want to take me back by force, but I was not satisfied, and when my father convinced, we submitted a request to the court, and we spent a while attending court sessions, because my husband was initially refusing to divorce me.”
For her part, lawyer and member of the legal team of the Yemen Women Union, Amal Al-Sabri, confirms to "Khuyut" that she encountered many divorce cases due to early marriage, and that there are a large percentage of these cases among marginalized women, pointing out that early marriage is a flagrant violation of the rights of childhood. She confirmed the fact that the girl is exposed to many health and psychological problems that may cause her death.
Al-Sabri adds that early marriage is one of the most hazardous phenomena that Yemeni society suffers from, noting that there are no fixed and binding laws in the Yemeni constitution that specify a safe age for marriage. However, in the outcomes of the National Dialogue, there was agreement to set a safe age for girls’ marriage with a legal text that obliges everyone not to marry girls under the age of 18, but it was not implemented, especially in light of the war that erupted after the end of the National Dialogue.
Psychological disorders and effects
With the increase in responsibilities and the multiplicity of marital obligations, a girl who is married to a minor is exposed to psychological pressure, which negatively affects her social life, behavior and conduct.
Nujoud continues: "My psychological state was affected during the three months of marriage, and I was only thinking about how to escape it. I was hard for me to sleep without pills (drugs) to help sleep and use tranquilizers, and I noticed that I became violent and could not stand those around me out of my control, because I was always quarrelling with my husband, especially at times when he was very violent towards me."
And about this, the psychologist, Marwa Al-Awadi, said: “When a girl is married in general at an early age of 10-18 years, she is in adolescence, and hormonal disorders occur, and this is reflected in her behavior and manners in general, and she is considered at the level of psychological, physical and sexual immaturity. Further, she is not able to make sound decisions, control her actions, or afford the burdens of the home and the marital relationship commitments correctly which as a result lead to deep differences with her life partner.
Al-Awadi points out that the psychological trauma of a minor girl increases when pregnancy occurs rapidly after her marriage, and she finds herself responsible for raising a child while she is still basically in childhood whereas the tasks in front of her are growing, and she enters into a cycle of depression, anxiety and tension and experiences great psychological pressure causing her health complications.
After Nujood's success in separating from her husband, she continued to raise her child with the help of her family, and resumed her secondary studies, and this year she entered the university, where she had stopped school in the middle school because of her early marriage. She also decided to remarry when she reached the age of twenty, describing her experience with her second marriage by saying: "Now in my second marriage our relationship is successful, and I have become very conscious of marital life and aware of mutual marital rights, and I can easily react with my husband, and here we live in harmony and peace."
