| November 2009 At ten years old, Arwa has already been married and divorced. In Yemen, where a quarter of women marry before theyre fifteen, her case has sparked a nationwide debate about child marriage. He would ask me to bring him something and if it wasnt there, he would beat me, Arwa recalls. Her husband offered a generous dowry but before long, he became violent and abusive. Encouraged by her father, she ran away. We cannot find a good balance between the husband and the girl. It is not marriage, it is only rape! says her lawyer, who successfully campaigned for a new law to make seventeen the legal minimum age of marriage. Before Arwa's divorce, there was no protection for child brides, with the countrys influential religious conservatives opposed to change: Islam determines the age of marriage to be when the girl is ready for intercourse, not a specific age. Until the President ratifies the new law, it could still be reversed, leaving many Yemenite girls to suffer the same fate as Arwa. |
