Child marriages are mounting dramatically in the Arab world's poorest country, fueled by a war that has thrown society into turmoil. In a survey conducted in September in six provinces, 72 percent of female respondents said they got married before 18 — compared with around 50 percent in surveys before the war — and about 44 percent said they were wedded before they turned 15, the organization said. "Parents marry off their daughters to be relieved of the cost of their care or because they believe a husband's family can offer better protection," UNICEF said. In the 1990s, a law setting the age at 15 was repealed by Parliament under pressure from Muslim conservatives, who argue that Islamic Shariah law does not prohibit child marriage and that attempts to curb the practice are a Western plot. Human rights groups have documented cases of prepubescent girls bleeding to death from being raped by husbands. Before the war upended her family, her husband would bring in the equivalent of $20 a day, a decent wage in Yemen, and during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, when everyone hires butchers to slaughter sheep and other livestock, he would make as much as $4,000. A top tribal leader, Mohammed Shabana, intervened, and the father agreed under pressure to return half the money and to sign, along with the husband-to-be, a pledge not to marry off the girl until she turns 18. The father and the would-be husband could not be reached for comment. Because of the fighting between government forces backed by a Saudi-led coalition on one side and Houthi rebels supported by forces loyal to the country's former president on the other, more than 400,000 girls under 18 have lost their homes, and many of them are living in refugee camps.
Comment on Girls are increasingly being married off in war-torn Yemen
By AHMED AL-HAJ and MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle: World
Sat, 05/27/2017 - 12:05am
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