8-Year-Old Yemeni Girl Wins Divorce From Gross Husband

Moe — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:00:00 EDT

Nojoud Nasser, the 8-year-old Yemeni kid who took her own pint-sized self to court to get a divorce from her 30-year-old pedophile husband, has won, but the Yemeni parliament does not really see any point in passing laws to prevent parents from selling their elementary school-aged daughters to pervs, perhaps because, even though the average marriage age has fallen to fourteen, it's still a lot higher than 10, which it was a few generations ago. But one crusading politician, the Islah Party's Fuad Dahaba, is pressing for a law. "If it is my personal opinion I believe 18 is the right age, because marriage is such a big responsibility," he says. Eighteen! What a mensch. We Googled him. And! We learned about a run-in he had with another sort of fearless Arab heroine that kinda tells you a lot about the Middle East, God, & life, etc.!

Mr. Dahaba is a leading advocate of the poor and disenfranchised and proponent of sharia law who, just two months ago, backed the attempt to scare Syrian chanteuse Asala Nasry from performing in the country on the basis of Yemen's new fatwa on all concerts. After being threatened with the "same fate as Benazir Bhutto" by the local Al Qaeda branch, Ms. Nasry came anyway, saying, you know, if she can hack it in Algeria she can hack it in Yemen. What with God to protect her and all. And he did.

Parliament Refuses To Legislate Minimum Age For Marriage [Yemen Times]
Concert Became Courageous Manifestation Against Terrorism [Freemuse]

8-Year-Old In Yemen Takes Abusive 30-Year-Old Husband To Court, And Wins!

Moe — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:00:00 EDT

Nojoud Muhammed Nasser wants a divorce. She is eight years old, and really too cute to be illustrating an angry feminist rant, but I guess that's sort of the point: Nasser's dad married her off to a thirty-year-old child molester, and while that sort of thing is perfectly legal in Yemen since they amended the marital age limit laws in 1999, the molester was not supposed to try to actually molest her, according to the law, until she was "mature." Remarkably, he did not comply. It's a tossup who is the more reprehensible man in this story: the husband —"Whenever I wanted to play in the yard he beat me and asked me to go to the bedroom with him," she tells the Yemen Times, or the dad, who "beat me and told me that I must marry this man, and if I did not, I would be raped and no law and no sheikh in this country would help me" — until you learn her dad is a beggar who probably has mental problems. Some interesting context re the Yemen Times: they employ columnist Maged Thabet Al-Kholidy, author of the recent internet sensation: "There Must Be Violence Against Women."

I can only hope the newspaper can monetize some of that traffic and get reporter Hamed Thabet a raise.

Noujoud Nasser's is not an unusual case in Yemen, where poor people — and most are poor — often sell their kids to old pervs to make ends meet; in Nasser's case her dad went a little crazy after losing his job as a garbage truck driver and being forced to beg for a living. But Nasser is the first minor to go to court herself to ask for a divorce; her family members didn't dare. Nasser's husband and dad have both been arrested — though the dad has since been released — which may be why Yemen isn't the worst place to be a woman, though it does rank 138th out of 140 on a list of Best to Worst places to be a mother. (Niger and Sierra Leone are worse.)

In other Yemeni news, a branch of Al Qaeda took credit for bombing an expatriate compound in the capital city of Sanaa, so ambassador Tom Krajeski evacuated the nonessential staff.

For the First Time In Yemen, Eight Year Old Girl Asks For Divorce [Yemen Times]
Related: Early Marriage Hampering Country's Development
Earlier: The Ground Rules For Wifebeating, Brought To You By The Yemen Times

Jezebel: nojoud nasser

8-Year-Old Yemeni Girl Wins Divorce From Gross Husband

8-Year-Old In Yemen Takes Abusive 30-Year-Old Husband To Court, And Wins!