PostHeaderIcon Child-bride divorces her 50 year old husband



In Saudi Arabia a judge permitted an 8 year-old girl to divorce her 50 year-old groom. The girl was forced into marriage in August 2008 after her father run into debts and got a $13,000 dowry for his daughter. The mother of the bride objected and sought annulment.

Because there is no law in Saudi Arabia that rules on the marrying age, human rights groups pressure the Saudi government to enact a law to protect children in this situation.

“The 8-year-old girl's marriage was not the only one in the kingdom to receive attention in recent months. Saudi newspapers have highlighted several cases in which young girls were married off to much older men or young boys including a 15-year-old girl whose father, a death-row inmate, married her off to a cell mate.”---Yahoo.News.com/ AP (04/30/0, Al-Shalchi, H)



Upheld by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UNICEF executive director Ann Veneman stressed the right to a free and full consent in contracting marriage which is absent when the union involves a party that is too young to make such consent and informed decision.

Joining calls to end the practice of marriage by minors, the United States called such marriages as human rights violations. Undersecretary of state for political affairs William Burns said in a conference:

"Child marriage is, unfortunately, still common in much of Saudi Arabia and we have voiced our concern about this practice at the highest levels…We were encouraged by reports that the Justice Ministry had begun to review the legal age of marriage."----CNN.com (04/30/09, Jamjoom, M; Abedine, S)

Some Saudi officals are open to make laws aimed to protect the under-aged. The country’s legislature, the Shura Council, are deliberating to put into law a suggestion that 18 years should be minimum age for marriage. (Photo credit: tj_2000pk x 2) =0=



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