Nujood Ali

Nujood Ali, born in 1998, is a figure of Yemen's fight against forced marriage. At the age of ten years, she obtained a divorce in legal history, breaking with the tribal tradition. She was designated by the U.S. women's magazine Glamour, which has given the same honor her lawyer Shada Nasser, a specialist in human rights and feminist, born in 1964.

Biography

Nujood Ali was only nine years old when her parents married her to a man in his thirties. Regularly beaten by her in-laws, raped by her husband, she began to visit with her parents to escape on 2 April 2008, two months after the wedding. On the advice of the second wife of her father, she went directly to court, only to seek a divorce. After half a day of waiting, she was noticed by the judge, Mohammed al-għadha who took it upon himself to host it temporarily and sent father and husband in custody.

Shada Nasser agreed to defend the charge. For the lawyer, it was the continuation of a struggle begun with the installation of her practice in Sana'a, where she opened in the 1990s and first female cabinet where she built a customer base by offering its services to women prisoners.

Yemeni law sets no minimum age for marriage but prohibits sexual relations with young wives until they are ready. In court, Chadha argued that the husband had broken the law because there had been rape. Nojoud rejected the proposal of the judge to resume living together after a break of three to five years. On 15 April, the court granted him a divorce.

After the trial, Ali Nujood joined her family in the suburb of Sanaa. She returned to school in the fall of 2008, for the first time since her marriage, with plans to become a lawyer.

Writings

Nojoud Moi, 10 years old, divorced, Michel Lafon (With Delphine Minou), Paris, 2009 (ISBN 978-2749909769)

References

Rozenn Nicolle "La petite divorced of Yemen", Libération, 31 January 2009
"A Yemeni 10 years among women of the year," Le Nouvel Observateur, 11 November 2008
Delphine Minou, "Nojoud, 10 years, divorced in Yemen", Le Figaro, 24 June 2008
Cyriel Martin, "Yemen: a girl of 8 years gets a divorce," Le Point, 16 April 2008
Carla Power, "Ali & Nujood Shada Nasser: The Voices for Children," Glamour, December 2008