Girls In Yemen Forced to Marry Too Young
Photo: David Swanson/IRIN
Early marriage hampering country’s development, says report by Save the Children Sweden in cooperation with Gender-Development Research and Studies Center at Sanaa University, The report entitled Gender Based Sexual Violence Against Teenage Girls in the Middle East, illustrates how Yemeni girls are deprived of their child rights when they are prepared for motherhood at an early age.
“It should not be allowed because it deprives a girl of enjoying her childhood.”, stated one Yemeni girl in the report.
“Such a role creates an apprehension among girls and their families that marrying is the primary goal for girls,” said the report’s research leader, Pernilla Ouis. In Yemen, conservative social values and poverty force girls to marry and become young mothers before the age of 18, said Ouis.
August 4th, 2008 at 12:00 am
[…] In April in the post, Girls In Yemen Forced to Marry Too Young, an introduction to the abuses committed against girls who are forced into marriage too early, including highlighting the hindrance that child marriage is placing on the country’s development. According to a recent study by Sana University, researchers found the average age of marriage in rural Yemen to be 12 to 13. Why are girls married off so young? Poverty and economic hardship are the root cause of the problem, which ironically has led only to develop into a cycle of poverty, as the girls are pulled from school for marriage leaving most illiterate. […]