The Yemeni child "Nada Al-Ahdal" refused marriage at 12 and fled to become a human rights activist
The 12-year-old Yemeni child Nada Al-Ahdal managed to attract the attention of various social media after speaking about child marriage.
Nada spoke about the subject in a television interview on an Arab channel with great poise and knowledge, and put forward many solutions to eliminate it, especially in poor communities where this phenomenon is widespread.
The girl said that child marriage can be ended through education, because most poor families resort to it to rid themselves of the financial burden of a daughter on the family, which is something she went through personally in her own life.
During the interview Nada also went over the answers she got from her family when she wanted to know why they were marrying her off while she was a minor, which the family reduced to customs and traditions and getting rid of her burden, and that her place is either her husband’s house or her grave.
Nada Al-Ahdal’s case began in July 2013, when an eleven-year-old Yemeni girl appeared in a two-minute YouTube video explaining the pressure her family had put on her to force her to marry, and speaking of how she fled her family to avoid an imminent forced marriage. This caused a great media stir, while the Seyaj Organisation for Childhood Protection issued a statement questioning the truth of the story and claiming that the girl had been exploited.
The video spread widely and was translated into English, gaining more than 7 million views in 3 days and drawing the attention of Arab and foreign media. In the video Nada said:
” It’s true that I ran away from my family .. I don’t want to live with them .. I want to live with my uncle .. what about the innocence of childhood .. where is the innocence of children when they marry them off like this … I will solve my problem, right?.. But some children can’t solve their problems .. maybe they die, maybe they kill themselves .. maybe they do whatever comes into their heads, because they are children who know nothing … because they haven’t learned, haven’t studied, nothing .. I mean, what is our fault … I am not the only one .. maybe all children .. there are many children here .. some children have thrown themselves into the sea, what next!… What is this innocence?.. This is not innocence .. It’s true that I ran away to my uncle .. and he wasn’t there. I called Abduljabbar to take me .. and Abduljabbar gave me a girl and she and I travelled to Hodeidah .. and when my uncle found out about it he came to me… And also my mother reported us to the police, and I am 11 years old and she wants to marry me off .. I mean, there is no life, there is no education, there is no strength, there is no mercy in their hearts .. what kind of upbringing is this with them! Death is more merciful to me, I would rather die than stay .. I prefer to be with my uncle than to be with them .. they kill me, they threaten me, they tell me if you go to your uncle we will kill you, what threats they threaten children with … Would you accept it, someone like me, being married off .. would you accept it .. and for me being killed is nothing .. I will not live with them, I will not live with them. They killed our dreams, they killed everything in us .. I mean, what next.. this is not upbringing .. this is a crime, a crime. My aunt was thirteen years old, she lived one year with her husband and poured petrol on her body and died .. I mean, he would take an iron bar, and he used to drink, and he had a disease .. and he had everything .. would you accept it, would you accept me getting married. Would you accept it! Mother, give up on me; my family, give up on me.. I don’t want you .. that’s it, you have destroyed my dreams .. you have destroyed all of them.”
The girl has written a book about her story in which she recounted her parents’ admissions that they tried to marry her off, and her stand against child marriage in the light of what happened to her aunt, who took her own life by setting herself on fire a year after being married off at the age of 11, and her sister, who also tried to take her own life by setting herself on fire at the age of 12.
She took part in the international feature film “I Am Nojoom”, which won many international awards and was nominated for an Oscar; her role was to save Nojoom from marriage and to sell the ring on her hand to buy toys and enjoy her rights as a child.
