Yet another horrible story involving a child bride named Shareefa who lost her rights to a normal childhood and education. Married off for money at age 10 by her UNNAMED DAD, she is now 21 and divorced, but with renal disease and depression. Notice that at one point Shareefa's mother was divorced by her husband, and that she lost custody of her six children (including Shareefa) until she was able to reunite with them three years later.
http://www.kippreport.com/2010/04/another-victim-of-child-marriage/?bnr=
Another victim of child marriage
April 22, 2010
Children married for money, robbed of educational, professional opportunities
Shareefa is in hospital suffering from depression as well as a renal infection, said her mother in reply to Arab News’ query about her health.
The 21-year-old girl is the latest, and definitely not the last, example of the suffering resulting from child marriages in the Kingdom.
Her father married her off to an 80-year-old man when she was only 10 in return for money, depriving her of the right to a normal childhood, education and a more suitable marriage.
Shareefa then discovered by chance she had actually been divorced ten years ago after six months of marriage, despite not being notified at the time.
After suffering at her husband’s hands and living with his two other wives, children and grandchildren, who were about her age, at his house in the Jazan region for six months, the old man took her back to her family’s area in Dammam and left her in the street so she could go home.
“Many long agonizing years passed, and there was no news from him. Whenever I talked to my father about my situation, he would just ignore me,” says Shareefa, swallowing her tears.
She added that she accepted her situation as she was too young to comprehend her rights.
Her mother had tried all possible ways to stop Shareefa’s marriage, but neither the father nor the husband, who she begged to wait until she was a few years older, listened to her.
The mother also went to court to file a suit against the father for failing to register or complete any identification papers for her six other children, which resulted in them not being enrolled at school.
The father then divorced her five years ago and took all the children away where she could not reach them, including Shareefa who was already suffering.
Yet Shareefa’s life was about to get more painful after her father’s death two years ago.
“I was able to be finally reunited with my children and we started on a journey to reclaim Shareefa and my other children’s rights,” says the mother.
They then went to a court in the Eastern Province to seek Khola (an enforced divorce based on a woman’s demand), as they had finally received identification papers for Shareefa based on her father’s death certificate, only to receive more shocking news.
They discovered that Shareefa had been divorced ten years ago, but was not informed and, therefore, did not receive any divorce documents.
“Shareefa is now 21, she has lost more than 10 years of her life, her chance for an education, a decent marriage and normal life. Who is going to take responsibility for what she has gone through?” asks the heartbroken mother, adding that they are determined to push for compensation from those responsible for her daughter’s suffering.
The mother also claims that the father was taking advantage of Shareefa’s situation by promising her hand in marriage to other men and asking them to bribe her husband into divorcing her.
“Her father would then take the money and flee to another city,” says the mother.
Shareefa is now swallowing her pain and dreaming of a better life that has been ripped from her hands, despite facing a dark future devoid of any hope.
“I am struggling to maintain a home with six children on only SR800 a month” says Shareefa’s mother, pointing out that the Social Affairs Department is only providing benefits for her as her children do not have legal documentation.
The family’s lawyer Faisal Al-Otaibi is pursuing legal action against Shareefa’s husband who abandoned and divorced her without informing her 10 years ago, as well as against the court that also did not notify her.
Al-Otaibi described the family’s circumstances as desperate, from their ramshackle house to the legal battle they now face over their right to education and healthcare.
“Her legal guardian was always absent, even when he was alive. The guardian should be a responsible person, and her father wasn’t,” says Al-Otaibi.
“We are still waiting for our living conditions to get better, although Shareefa’s lost years will never come back,” says the mother.
–Arabnews
Showing posts with label child bride. Show all posts
Showing posts with label child bride. Show all posts
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Child bride escapes after months of abuse and chains (Hodeida, Yemen)
This young girl was married off by her UNNAMED DAD and three uncles for about $1,400. She then suffered horrendous abuse, not only at the hands of her elderly husband, but at the hands of her uncle, who "punished" her for trying to escape by literally chaining her.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2010/04/yemen-runaway-child-bride-and-fourth-child-bride-granted-divorce.html
Babylon & Beyond
Observations from Iraq, Iran,
Israel, the Arab world and beyond
YEMEN: Child bride escapes after months of abuse and chains
April 1, 2010 7:20 am
The young girl had had enough. For months the Yemeni teenager named Hind from the Red Sea town of Hodeida had allegedly been repeatedly beaten and sexually abused by her 70-something husband to whom she was married off by her father and three uncles for the equivalent of $1,400 last year, according to the Yemeni English newspaper the Yemen Times.
She tried to run away from her forced marriage and abuser several times but was caught fleeing by one of the uncles who had arranged her marriage.
Angered that she had tried to run away from the deal he had brokered, the uncle felt Hind, thought to be 13 or 14 years old, needed to be punished for her deed.
So he put a long, heavy iron chain around her neck and tied her to his house like a dog for two months. The uncle apparently made the chain long enough so that Hind could move from the yard to the kitchen and the bathroom.
During this hellish time, Hind was also allegedly beaten by her uncle and sexually abused several times by her cousins.
She finally managed to escape two weeks ago, and details of her tragic story have begun to emerge.
The oldest of five children in a poor family, Hind was living in a shack with her siblings and their elderly blind father. The family's main income was based on what she and her siblings generated from begging in the streets.
Hind was then married off to a man in his 70s during the Muslim holiday Ramadan last year. The old man did not have a house of his own, so he would take Hind to a place he shared with his friends or to the home of his ex-wife's son.
The abused child bride finally managed to flee -- still with the chain around her neck -- and was given refuge at the home of a woman and her family in the city of Taiz in the Yemeni highlands.
The woman who's giving her shelter, 55-year-old Zakya Mohammed, believes Hind is pregnant, added the report.
"I will do my best for this poor little girl. She is in need of love, food, and safety," Mohammed was quoted as saying by the Yemen Times.
Hind, meanwhile, is happy to be safe and relieved to have escaped her torturers.
“I do not want to leave here until I feel sure that my uncle can no longer harm me,” she is quoted as saying.
It was not immediately clear what the authorities plan to do in the case.According to Yemen Times, the investigator at the police station had a look at Hind's bruises and the chain around her neck. But instead of arresting the uncle, he apparently only wrote a memo and forced the uncle to sign a paper saying he wouldn't put the girl in chains again.
Hind's case is not isolated but the latest in a string of publicized cases of child brides in Yemen. Two years ago, 10-year old Nujood Ali became the face of Yemeni child brides when she turned up in a Sanaa court house and demanded a divorce from her husband, who was reportedly in his 30s.
Ali's story was covered extensively in the Western media and the book she co-wrote with the French journalist Delphine Minnoui was recently translated into English.
The now 12-year old divorcee lives in Sanaa with her family, and the royalties from her book are covering her family's new house and business, as well as schooling for both herself and her younger sister, Haifa.
But as 12-year old Sally Sabahi signed her divorce papers in Sanaa earlier this week, becoming Yemen's fourth child bride divorcee, heated debates between reformists and conservatives continue to rage in the impoverished country over whether Yemen should ban child marriages.
Earlier this month, hundreds of women demonstrated outside the Yemeni Parliament in support for the implementation of a legislation which sets the minimum age for women to marry at 17 and men at 18.
But the anti-child-bride activists have been met with fierce opposition. Two days earlier, women opposing the child-marriage ban lobbied lawmakers in an even bigger demonstration outside the Parliament, said Agence France-Presse.
Some conservative Islamic clerics are also giving a ban on child marriages a big thumbs down.
A group of them condemned the law in a statement issued earlier this month, saying those who support the ban were apostates, reported the BBC.
So there is no law protecting children against forced early marriages in Yemen as of yet.
-- Alexandra Sandels in Beirut
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2010/04/yemen-runaway-child-bride-and-fourth-child-bride-granted-divorce.html
Babylon & Beyond
Observations from Iraq, Iran,
Israel, the Arab world and beyond
YEMEN: Child bride escapes after months of abuse and chains
April 1, 2010 7:20 am
The young girl had had enough. For months the Yemeni teenager named Hind from the Red Sea town of Hodeida had allegedly been repeatedly beaten and sexually abused by her 70-something husband to whom she was married off by her father and three uncles for the equivalent of $1,400 last year, according to the Yemeni English newspaper the Yemen Times.
She tried to run away from her forced marriage and abuser several times but was caught fleeing by one of the uncles who had arranged her marriage.
Angered that she had tried to run away from the deal he had brokered, the uncle felt Hind, thought to be 13 or 14 years old, needed to be punished for her deed.
So he put a long, heavy iron chain around her neck and tied her to his house like a dog for two months. The uncle apparently made the chain long enough so that Hind could move from the yard to the kitchen and the bathroom.
During this hellish time, Hind was also allegedly beaten by her uncle and sexually abused several times by her cousins.
She finally managed to escape two weeks ago, and details of her tragic story have begun to emerge.
The oldest of five children in a poor family, Hind was living in a shack with her siblings and their elderly blind father. The family's main income was based on what she and her siblings generated from begging in the streets.
Hind was then married off to a man in his 70s during the Muslim holiday Ramadan last year. The old man did not have a house of his own, so he would take Hind to a place he shared with his friends or to the home of his ex-wife's son.
The abused child bride finally managed to flee -- still with the chain around her neck -- and was given refuge at the home of a woman and her family in the city of Taiz in the Yemeni highlands.
The woman who's giving her shelter, 55-year-old Zakya Mohammed, believes Hind is pregnant, added the report.
"I will do my best for this poor little girl. She is in need of love, food, and safety," Mohammed was quoted as saying by the Yemen Times.
Hind, meanwhile, is happy to be safe and relieved to have escaped her torturers.
“I do not want to leave here until I feel sure that my uncle can no longer harm me,” she is quoted as saying.
It was not immediately clear what the authorities plan to do in the case.According to Yemen Times, the investigator at the police station had a look at Hind's bruises and the chain around her neck. But instead of arresting the uncle, he apparently only wrote a memo and forced the uncle to sign a paper saying he wouldn't put the girl in chains again.
Hind's case is not isolated but the latest in a string of publicized cases of child brides in Yemen. Two years ago, 10-year old Nujood Ali became the face of Yemeni child brides when she turned up in a Sanaa court house and demanded a divorce from her husband, who was reportedly in his 30s.
Ali's story was covered extensively in the Western media and the book she co-wrote with the French journalist Delphine Minnoui was recently translated into English.
The now 12-year old divorcee lives in Sanaa with her family, and the royalties from her book are covering her family's new house and business, as well as schooling for both herself and her younger sister, Haifa.
But as 12-year old Sally Sabahi signed her divorce papers in Sanaa earlier this week, becoming Yemen's fourth child bride divorcee, heated debates between reformists and conservatives continue to rage in the impoverished country over whether Yemen should ban child marriages.
Earlier this month, hundreds of women demonstrated outside the Yemeni Parliament in support for the implementation of a legislation which sets the minimum age for women to marry at 17 and men at 18.
But the anti-child-bride activists have been met with fierce opposition. Two days earlier, women opposing the child-marriage ban lobbied lawmakers in an even bigger demonstration outside the Parliament, said Agence France-Presse.
Some conservative Islamic clerics are also giving a ban on child marriages a big thumbs down.
A group of them condemned the law in a statement issued earlier this month, saying those who support the ban were apostates, reported the BBC.
So there is no law protecting children against forced early marriages in Yemen as of yet.
-- Alexandra Sandels in Beirut
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)