Coverage of Yemen tends to focus on the country’s ongoing conflicts—from the separatist movement in the South, to the civil war in the North. Good news is difficult to find in a country ravaged by war, yet one woman in Yemen, a little girl rather, has made international headlines for her bravery.
Nujood Ali, recently became Yemen’s first child bride to legally divorce her husband. Nujood’s courageous actions have not only allowed her to save herself, they have set the precedent for other child brides to defend their rights in Yemen. At 10 years old, Nujood has also written an international best seller. I am Nujood age 10 and Divorced has been published in 18 languages, including her native Arabic, and its international success has allowed her to become her family’s main breadwinner. Nujood’s accomplishments, needless to say, are great. Hilary Clinton even described her as “one of the greatest women she had ever seen.”
Yet, Nujood’s story is about more than just one child bride and her accomplishments. Rather, her story provides great insight into the practices that shape Yemen and hinder its development. The problem of child brides and the repression of women more broadly is more than a cultural difference that Yemen has with say Western countries. It is a problem of its underdevelopment, and a problem that is largely responsible for the many types of insecurity that Yemeni’s have grown accustomed to.
Although, Nujood’s story has a happy ending, her childhood is a sad reminder of the harsh reality that many girls in Yemen live to this day. Nujood is remarkable for having given a rampant problem in the country a voice, but she is also remarkable for how commonplace her situation as a child bride is, and that is why her life story is worth recounting.
The nightmare for most girls in Yemen begins in very much the same way as it did for Nujood. When she turned nine, her family told her that she would marry a deliveryman in his 30’s. She had previously made her father promise her that he would not force her to marry and drop out of school for she was especially interested in Math and the Koran. Although Nujood was at first impressed by the gifts she received for the marriage—dresses, a perfume, two hijabs, a hair brush and a ring—she was very unhappy at the idea of marrying and leaving school. But the arranged marriage took place, despite her incessant pleading.
Nujood’s father had agreed with her husband that although the marriage would take place, he was not to touch her until she was “ready”, as the vague Yemeni legal system stipulates with regards to child brides. However, as in most other cases, Nujood’s former husband did not comply with these demands, raping her daily and beating her when she tried to escape him.
The extent of Nujood’s fear and unhappiness grew unbearable, and two months after her wedding Nujood ran away to Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. On her own, the little girl took a bus and a taxi to the main court of the city where she remained until a judge granted her a divorce. Although the judge did grant her the divorce, Nujood was ordered to pay her former husband $200 USD, an incredible amount in Yemen where the majority of the population lives under the poverty line.
In fact, poverty stands to explain much in Nujood’s story, although it excuses none of the injustice women like her suffer regularly. At first glance, it is easy to take Nujood’s story and categorize her male relatives, her husband and her father particularly, as first rate antagonists. But the problem of gender inequality in Yemen, and the exploitation of young girls like Nujood, is more complex and more expansive than the two men that defined this story might lead one to believe.
Nujood’s father, Ali Mohammed Ahdal, is a former street sweeper. He has 16 children, two wives and is unemployed. Ahdal found marrying his 9 year old solved two of his problems: insecurity and poverty. Ahdal had immigrated to Sanaa with his family to look for work but instead found himself poorer than before. Unable to provide for his family, the prospect of a dowry and of one less mouth to feed made marrying his daughter a partial solution to this problem in his eyes. Perhaps what convinced him was that one of Nujood’s sisters had already been kidnapped and another raped. Marrying Nujood, might save her from being dishonored, kidnapped and raped like the other girls.
In these conditions, some Yemenis might interpret child marriage as a solution to the types of insecurities they regularly face. But as Nujood showed the world, the insecurity that girls face as a result of early marriage only continue to grow. More strikingly, because her story has a happy ending, it does not show how negatively these practices affect this underdeveloped and conflicted country if children stay married.
As Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times explains, “it is no coincidence that Yemen abounds both in child brides and in terrorists. Societies that repress women tend to be prone to violence.” Although it might appear as an all-encompassing explanation for a complex problem, various human rights NGOs and international organizations support his view.
The reason countries with child brides can be unstable, they argue, is because these conditions result in unusually high birth rates, which cause a youth bulge in the population. The high proportion of young men aged 15-24 increases the likelihood of violence. This tendency increases even further in countries like Yemen where there are very few economic opportunities. In fact, 70 percent of men in this age group in Yemen are unemployed.
To make matters worse, because polygamy and child marriage are practiced in Yemen, and these two factors correlate with a higher death rate in women, more men are likely to be single than married. This is another factor that has proved to increase the tendency of men to participate in conflict, as “frustrated bachelors” are more easily recruited by extremists. (In fact, Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorist strategy supports this view, as many of their demobilized combatants are encouraged to start families to prevent them from rejoining militant groups).
Rachel Cooke of the guardian wrote that Yemen is the worst place in the world to be a woman. Citing the Human Development Index, she shows that 71 percent of Women in Yemen are illiterate, as opposed to 31 percent of men, and 35 percent of women in most other Middle Eastern countries. Women in Yemen also have a 1 in 39 chance of dying in pregnancy or childbirth throughout their lifetime. Because the law in Yemen does not have a minimum marrying age, there is also larger proportion of younger girls who are especially vulnerable to maternal mortality and health complications.
As Nujood’s lawyer, said “Yemeni women have few rights, and they don’t know those they do have.” Although calls to raise the legal age of consent in Yemen to 18 have failed, Nujood has inspired other young girls to seek divorce. Women like Nujood and her lawyer, Nasser, have undertaken a gargantuan task, and they are successfully opening doors for gender equality in Yemen as a result. Their case is raising awareness of the problems that child marriage and the oppression of women lead to, not only for women but for Yemen’s future as a whole.
