Yemen still wedded to child marriages

Image by laeli via Flickr

Heather Murdock THE WASHINGTON TIMES

SAN'A, Yemen | Thirteen-year-old Sally al-Sabahi stood outside the courthouse earlier this month fiddling with her smudged, half-polished nails. She was hoping to get a divorce, but her husband did not show up.

When Sally was 11, her father married her to 23-year-old Nabil al-Mushahi, a cousin. Since the wedding, she has run away from her husband's home three times.

"I was afraid of him since the first day," she said in her parents' tiny, windowless, stone home after the failed court date. "I don't want to get married again until after I am dead."

Sally said she wants a divorce because her husband beat, berated and regularly attempted to rape her. When asked whether he succeeded in the sexual assaults, her long eyelashes lowered toward the floor against her black veil, and she picked at the faded orange and green sheet she was sitting on. She did not answer.

Arranged marriages for girls as young as 9 are common in many parts of Yemen. About half the women in the country are married before they are 18, according to Ahmed al-Quareshi, the head of the Seyaj Organization for the Protection of Children.

Image by Martin Sojka via Flickr

The Yemeni parliament has been debating for almost a year a law that would make 17 the minimum age for marriage, but the measure is fiercely contested and has been blocked by hard-line religious leaders.

"It's a part of their social structure," Mr. al-Quareshi said. "It's a tradition to allow marriage at an early age."

Early marriages are especially common in the countryside, where more than 70 percent of Yemen's 22 million people live, said Shada Nasser, a lawyer and children's rights advocate. Rural mothers, often illiterate and former child brides themselves, don't consider bucking the system, she said.

The young brides, robbed of childhood and education, grow up afraid of their husbands and resenting their children.

"They had dreams," Ms. Nasser said, "But early marriage broke those dreams."

As Yemen - the poorest country in the Arab world - seems to grow poorer every year, the child-bride population is growing fast, according to Ms. Nasser. Parents look for husbands for their little girls so they will have fewer mouths to feed.

Money paid by husbands to their brides' families is also an important source of income. Almost half of Yemenis live on less than $2 a day, according to the United Nations.

Before marriage, many future husbands promise the girls' families that they will not have sex with their brides until the girls are mature, which is generally considered to be about 15 years old. About 10 percent to 20 percent of the new husbands break that promise, according to Ms. Nasser.

It is not just poor families that marry their daughters before puberty, according to Naseem ur-Rehman, a spokesman for the U.N. children's agency, UNICEF. "It cuts across social and economic variations," he said.

Sometimes, he said, children are married to strengthen tribal relationships.

The early marriages often have dire consequences.

Women who give birth before they are 18 are almost eight times as likely to die in labor than those who give birth in their 20s, Mr. ur-Rehman said. In some parts of Yemen, women are about 60 times more likely to die in childbirth than in the United States.

Fawziya Youssef was 12 when she died in early September, according to Mr. al-Quareshi. Fawziya and her husband, 26, had been married for only a year.

Fawziya died of severe bleeding while delivering a stillborn baby after three days of painful labor. Her parents, however, do not think she died because she was married too young, said Mr. al-Quareshi. In their village in the Hoedeida governorate, it is the custom to marry girls before they are 13.

Fawziya's parents are heartbroken, but have no recourse.

"There are no laws saying that this is a crime," Mr. al-Quareshi said.

In February, a bill that would set a minimum marriage age was put to a vote in parliament. It passed 17 to 13, according to Fouad Dahabahi, a legislator. But before the president could sign it, it was blocked. A prominent sheik and several other Muslim religious leaders had objected, saying it contradicted Islamic law, which allows girls to be married at age 9.

Although most members of parliament disagreed with the sheik privately, according to Mr. Dahabahi they were worried about appearing un-Islamic. They sent the bill to be re-examined by committees on health, the constitution, Islamic law and human rights.

Mr. Dahabahi said he supported the bill because when he was 19, he was married to a 13-year-old girl named Intisar.

Soon after they were married, she became pregnant. She got very sick, and her frail health and misery haunted the family for years. "She was a child when she was a mother," he said.

The bill, he said, is also delayed because parliament members prefer not to argue publicly about such a controversial issue. And, as in many bodies in the Yemeni government, parliament has trouble getting things done because it is in session only five months a year.

Other lawmakers said they oppose the law because setting a specific age for marriage is an unnecessary bow to Western culture.

"Why do we have follow [Western] traditions?" asked parliament member Mohammad al-Hamzi. "God created the girl, and knows when she is ready."

Mr. al-Hamzi said that girls who marry before puberty should not, and normally do not, have sex with their husbands. But, he added, "If something bad happens to her, she has the right to go to the judge and ask for a divorce, like Nujood."

Last year, 10-year-old Nujood Ali went to court alone to seek freedom from an abusive husband. She sued for divorce against her father's will. She won because a sympathetic judge believed that her husband had raped her.

Nujood's case made news around the world and inspired parliament to consider a minimum legal age for marriage. But when she tried to register for school, Nujood was initially refused because she had been exposed to sex. The teacher said she could taint the other children, according to Ms. Nasser, who also represented Nujood.

When Nujood heard about Sally's bid for freedom, she pledged to give her $500 out of royalties from a biography being published about her. That is half the money Sally will need to repay her husband if she is granted a divorce.

Even though the judge believed that Nujood had been raped, she still had to give her ex-husband $200.

To get a divorce, Sally must produce written proof and a witness to the abuse.

A few weeks ago, during an Islamic holiday, Mr. al-Mushahi came to Sally's family home. The roof of the house is a blue plastic tarp, and household water is lugged inside in dirty yellow jerrycans. Sally said she wanted to stay with her family. Her parents begged her to go back to her husband.

For three days, Sally refused to eat, and threatened to kill herself. Her parents relented, and told Mr. al-Mushahi it was over.

"As I told you before, I tried to convince her, but she doesn't want you anymore," Sally's father, Mubkhoot Ahmed, barked into his cell phone at his son-in-law after he failed to appear in court.

Mr. Ahmed blamed himself for marrying off his daughter too young and for believing that Mr. al-Mushahi would not touch her before she was ready.

Sally said that when she was 11, she knew nothing about marriage, but agreed to the match because she would be lavished with gifts for the first time in her life. Her father supports his wife and five children by selling ground chili powder in the market. Sometimes he makes $2.50 a day. Sometimes he makes nothing.

"I was thinking only about jewelry and clothes," said Sally, slapping her hands together.

Her father said he was afraid that Mr. al-Mushahi would be embarrassed that Sally abandoned him, and try to take his daughter by force.

In a country with little government control outside the capital, he said he is prepared to protect his family the old-fashioned way.

"I have only weapons to protect myself," he said.

The Muslim Matchmakers of Birmingham

by Irfan Husain

The Birmingham Central Mosque —File photo

For the vast majority of young men and women in Pakistan, arranged marriages are still the only way for couples to tie the knot. In a largely segregated society, there are few occasions and venues for boys and girls to meet and get to know each other. But the system works well enough as most families have a vast network of relatives, friends and acquaintances, and clan and biradari connections are called upon when needed.

However, these links break down in the diaspora of Pakistani communities abroad. This is especially true when the young have grown up in a society where almost every educational and workplace is shared by men and women, and segregation is limited to a few old-fashioned men’s clubs. But for Muslims, this easy mingling of the sexes does not make it any easier to meet a life partner.

The younger generation of Pakistanis in Britain, for example, have imbibed values that belong neither to their parents, nor to the host community. Caught in between the two, they seek partners who are both ‘modern’, and yet hold fast to their traditional culture. And since their parents’ network in Britain is limited, young people often have to fend for themselves in a tricky marriage market. Also, as not many of them go to clubs, pubs or singles bars, they do not have the same opportunity to meet people that other Brits take for granted.

Compounding the problem for educated, professional Muslim women is the fact that their male counterparts often marry young, so when the women are successful and hitting 30, they find it increasingly tough to find the kind of partners they seek.

Many websites address this problem, and carry profiles and photos of Muslim women seeking husbands. Here in cyberspace, the essentials of lonely lives are laid bare. Meet ‘Kashmiri Kuri’: 29, a qualified accountant, working in London for a large firm, she is 5’ 3’ tall, likes going to the movies and listening to music, and does not smoke. She is looking for a man who is good-looking and has a sense of humour. He should not wear a beard, but should not drink alcohol. Will she find this paragon, or will she succumb to family pressure and marry somebody from Mirpur through a match arranged by the family?

Far too many lives have been ruined by a mismatch of expectations. Young men from rural Pakistan, unfamiliar with the liberal values of the West and concepts like gender equality, expect their educated British wives to conform to the submissive role wives play in their home village. The young brides, having been born and brought up in an environment where women are equal, often cannot adjust to the demands made by their husbands. Such matches end up in divorce or a lifetime of miserable coexistence in the name of duty.

For many in the West, the only idea they have of Muslim marriages is in the form of headlines announcing yet another honour-killing. This is a common phenomenon where a Muslim girl is made the victim of her father’s or brother’s outrage at her refusal to accept their dictation about who she should marry. But these incidents are rare exceptions: the majority community is largely ignorant of the problems young Muslims face in meeting Mr or Miss Right.

To address this issue, Channel 4 recently aired ‘Muslim and Looking for Love’, a documentary that examines the dilemma so many young Muslims face in Britain today. Directed and produced by the well-known London-based Pakistani director Faris Kermani, this is an occasionally painful scrutiny of lonely lives seeking love and companionship.

The film takes us to the Birmingham Central Mosque, where Mr Razzaq and Mr Haq are two of the more implausible matchmakers you are likely to encounter. Middle-aged and traditional, they maintain profiles of a thousand young men and women. Those seeking partners, often accompanied by their parents, are told about prospective spouses who, in the judgment of Mr Haq or Mr Razzaq, might fit the requirements.

A woman of Egyptian descent wants to meet somebody from her country who is educated and would make a good match. Highly qualified, she works for a re-insurance company in London and feels she is very eligible. After a long search, the matchmakers find Mo, somebody they feel who meets her requirements, and an introduction is arranged at the mosque. Here, the two young people talk, but sadly, Mo is too Westernised for her liking. He enjoys going to clubs, and admits to having a drink now and then; she prays five times a day, and feels she could not live with somebody who is not similarly observant of religious edicts.

Another successful young man comes to the marriage bureau with his mother, and is introduced to a possible match. Very attractive, she is educated and has a good job. Initially, the vibes between the two seem good, and they agree to meet again. At this meeting, she begins to have doubts, especially when he bombards her with emails, wanting to know more about her. They then meet for the third and last time with her cousins on a day in the country. Although they seem to enjoy each other’s company, she is put off by the pressure he exerts to push things along. He appears to be in too much of a hurry to get married, while she wants to be sure that he is the right man for her. Finally, he confesses to the camera that he will have to go to Pakistan with his parents, and let them find a girl for him.

Tellingly, all the young Muslim women who appear in the film make it clear that they will only consider men who are British nationals. Clearly, they are all too aware of the pitfalls of marrying somebody who is unfamiliar with the values and attitudes they have grown up with. But although they expect to be treated as equals in a marriage, they have not yet got to the point where they can bring themselves to venture into the world of clubs and singles bars where other young men and women gather to meet prospective partners. Perhaps their children will, but this generation will still be going to Mr Haq and Mr Razzaq for help in meeting Mr Right.