Bride at 9, divorcee at 10

That is the title that caught my attention from an edition of The Times of India. Out of curiosity, I checked out the article. What I read after that was shocking and sick to the core. The story of Nujood Ali strangely resembles the Khaled Hosseini fiction: A Thousand Splendid Suns. I couldn’t help but write something about the ordeal that left the 12 year old Yemeni rot for over a year.

Nujood Ali, a regular school going girl from Yemen, who loved math and Quran classes, was forced into marriage at the age of 9 to a man old enough to be her father. She was raped on the first night of her wedding and regularly abused by her in-laws and so called husband, until she ran away two months after the wedding. With the help of a relative, she filed for divorce and was granted freedom later in the year becoming the youngest bride to legally end her marriage. With that she made headlines all over the world and was declared ‘Women of the Year’ in 2008 alongside Hillary Clinton and Nicole Kidman by Glamour magazine.      

Today her story is being told through her memoir "I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced " composed by a French journalist and is appearing in about 19 languages world over. She and her sister are attending a private school at her hometown with the funds she received from her book. She says with a smile, "All I want now is to finish my education. I want to be a lawyer."

I simply couldn’t stop imagining her plight and how disgusting and insane people can get. It’s great to know how successfully she fought her way out through the agony but it’s heartbreaking to realize the pain in her at the time when she should have played with her dolls.

We all have been truly blessed with a roof above our heads and satisfied with our never ending desires to carve out our lives better than the others. One thought of what girls like Nujood go through, is enough to make our stomachs turn over.       

http://www.glamour.com/women-of-the-year/2008/nujood-ali-and-shada-nasser