Yemeni 8-year-old files for divorce
Apr 15th, 2008 by Holly Fox
A friend passed on this article from the Yemen Times that AlterNet referenced in one of their blogs. It’s a disturbing story of what marriage and sex can mean to other governments and families. The girl would like to take her father to court for forcing her to marry a 30-year-old man, who she says abused her sexually and physically, and is seeking a divorce from her husband.
The article explains that a child cannot prosecute someone on his or her own. However, Yemeni law permits the marriage of children under the age of 15, “but the husband cannot be intimate with her until she is ready or mature.” That sounds like state-sanctioned child abuse to me. I am curious to find out how this case turns out.
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[...] blogged about the little Yemeni girl who filed for divorce from her 30-year-old husband by herself here, the story hadn’t been picked up by many major news outlets. Now the New York Times has an [...]