Child bride rejection is on the rise

The father and husband of child bride, Sally al-Sabahi, were detained by Bab Shoaob police in the capital Sana’a on Thursday.

The police detained Sally’s father Mabkhout al-Sabahi and her26 year old husband Nabil al-Marshahi, after Sally complained to the police that her father and her husband forged her age so as to write her marriage contract and get her married illegally. She also complained that her husband used to beat her whenever she refused to let him have sex with her 2 years ago. She had fled from his house in Hajjah province to her father’s house in Sana’a. Sally explained that her father used also to beat her so as to obey her husband.

After being instigated with Sally and listening to her story, the head of Bab Shoaob police, Mohammed al-Earassi, ordered to bring her father and her husband to the police station to start investigating them, in preparations of referring them to prosecution on Saturday.

Human rights lawyer Shatha Nasser started the entire complaint last Thursday when she raised a complaint to the capital prosecution, which was later referred to Shoaob police.

Sally’s mother hesitated to take the complaint to the police, as the husband was her nephew. “It is shameful to issue a complaint about my nephew to the police or to the court. I won’t do this,” said Noryyah Lutf , Sally’s mother. Sally’s husband tried to run away from her home when he learned about the instructions to refer him and her father to justice. He was particularly frightened when he saw Sally asking her brother to accompany her to the police station. She begged all her family members to help her go to the police but no one responded except her father. When her husband tried to run away, her father brought him back to the home and locked it. “You have to divorce my daughter or we both go to jail, but either way you won’t get away with it,” said Mabkhout al-Sabahi to his son-in-law Nabil al-Marshahi.

Al-Sabahi then told his young daughter to go to the police by herself. “Don’t worry. The journalists are with you. Go to the police. I have to stay here to prevent your husband from running away,” vowed Al-Sabahi.

With four journalists accompanying her, Sally made her way to the police station. “Are they going to jail my father, too? I don’t want him be jailed because there will be no one to feed me and my brothers and sister,” said Sally while on her way to the police station. Shortly thereafter she changed her mind, realizing this is the only way to get divorced.

Sally was married to her Nabil al-Marshahi 2 years ago when she was 10 years old. Her husband raped her every night for a week with the help of his mother (also Sally’s aunt). Sally then complained to her father that she was to be tortured. Her father kept her in his home since that time. However, a week after she arrived back at her father’s home, Sally’s husband accused her father of spoiling his wife and making her disobey him. After the accusations, Sally’s father beat her and forced her go sleep with her husband, as to prove that it was her decision and that she was the one that hated her husband.

Last Thursday, her husband came back to Sana’a to visit Sally and her family. Once he arrived, her father informed Sally’s lawyer to sue him and her husband and said he didn’t mind to go to jail for the sake of releasing his daughter from her sufferings.

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