The Child Protection Organization (Siyaj) has frozen the marriage of two Yemeni children for five years.
The parents of the two children (Na’ama Abdullah Al-Shwaiter, 13, and Hafiz Mansour Hamid Al-Hasani, 10) signed a written commitment to the organization promising not to proceed with the marriage until the children reach an age where they are capable of making informed decisions about whether or not to marry each other and have the freedom to choose.
The Monitoring and Advocacy Center assigned legal support officer, lawyer Akram Nu’man, and complaints and reports specialist, Nour Al-Jama’i, to follow up on the case, which culminated in the aforementioned commitment.
The two children confirmed that they absolutely do not want to marry, but their parents proceeded with the marriage contract.
The father of the boy (the groom), Hafiz Mansour, confirmed to the organization that he arranged the marriage to protect Na’ama from her parents, who had married off her two sisters, Sa’ada and Amina, years earlier when they were the same age. Both sisters are now divorced and suffering from numerous health, social, psychological, and economic problems.
This success in combating child marriage in Yemen is the second in less than two weeks, following the organization’s intervention to prevent the marriage of 12-year-old Aisha Ibrahim Muqrabish in the coastal district of Al-Luhayyah in the northwest of the country.
The Child Protection Network holds the Yemeni Presidency and the Council of Ministers responsible for the unjustified legislative vacuum on this sensitive issue.
It calls on them to expedite the enactment of national legislation criminalizing the marriage of girls under the age of 16 and granting judges discretionary power to authorize the marriage of any girl aged 17-18 if no harm is involved and her best interests are confirmed.
It also calls for addressing the underlying causes of child marriage, as legislation alone will not be sufficient to curb the problem.
Sana’a – November 27, 2013
