Married, and divorced, at age 10

Nujood Ali was married at age 10, says Borzou Daragahi in the Los Angeles Times. In February, the little Yemeni girl’s impoverished father married her off to a man three times her age, saying he only wanted to find her a secure home. The groom, motorcycle deliveryman Faez Ali Thamer, agreed not to touch Nujood until she reached puberty, her parents said. But in April, Nujood, with the help of a sympathetic aunt, marched into a courthouse in the capital city of Sanaa and announced, “I came to get a divorce.” She also told authorities that Thamer had insisted on sleeping in her bed, and that he beat her when she tried to stop him from touching her. The heartbreaking story made local and then international headlines, and soon Yemeni human-rights lawyer Shada Nasser took up Nujood’s case. Under tribal law, Thamer was entitled to compensation, so Nasser arranged for a $250 payment and the marriage was annulled. Last month, Nujood returned to her parents’ home, but only after her father promised he would never again try to marry her off. For her part, Nujood says she wants to go to school and eventually become a lawyer, like Nasser. “I want to be an example for all the other girls,” she says. “I’ll tell them not to marry until after your education, and marry the person you like.”

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