Horror as girl, 11, forced to marry man, 45, becoming pregnant at 13 | World | News

A woman has detailed the sexual abuse suffered at the hands of a distant relative after being forced into marriage at the age of 11. Noora Al Shami, now in her 40s, had just celebrated her birthday in Yemen, when she was sold to distant cousin Mohammed Al Ahdam in 1989 for a dowry of around $150.

The years following saw her subjected to verbal, physical and sexual violence, with the woman the woman evetually standing before the coutnry’s parliament to raise awareness of the scourge of child marriage. Speaking of her wedding day, Noora said: “I was allowed to wear adult clothes, to put on jewellery, to accept presents. What had not dawned on me was that I would be abused by a violent criminal.”

She told the Guardian: “My husband provided a dowry of around $150, which was a huge amount. But it was at the end of the wedding that the fear and horror set in. I was taken away from my parents and left with a man who meant nothing to me.

“He drove me to the house he shared with his widowed father in Al Hudaydah. It was a nice home but I immediately started to quiver, and to cry.”

Noora told elected officials in the parliament in Sana’a how her depraved husband would abuse her and their subsequent offspring, detailing the physical affects of a child being used for sexual gratification.

She said: “He was three times my age and saw marriage as a means to act like a depraved animal.”

After being forced into sex 10 days after the marriage, Noora was admitted to hospital, her young body struggling to cope with the ordeal, although sympathy and compassion was scarce amongst clinicians and family members due to her married status.

Noora recalled: “I was rushed to hospital – I was a child being treated as a sex object, but the abuse did not stop. Nobody was interested in my complaints, as I was legally a wife.”

Noora eventually gave birth to a son when she was 13, after suffering two miscarriage and had given birth to three children by the age of 15.

Of her husband she said: “He thought nothing of hitting me, even when I was pregnant,” as she detailed the physical abuse suffered by her young children in the family home.

Noora eventually left her husband after 10 years of marriage, through a project run by Oxfam and the Yemeni Women’s Union which assists victims of domestic violence.

She continues to fight legally for money to provide for her children but is also battling to end the practise of child marriages.

In Yemen, 14% of girls are married by the time they are 15, and more than 50% before the age of 18, according to the Human Rights Watch.

The legal age for marriage in Yemen is 15 but this is often contested by Islamic scholars who believe that girls are ready for marriage after beginning puberty.

For many, poverty is a driver in forcing children to marry young, with large dowries often more than many households earn in months.

Noora added: “The legal marriage age has been 15 for some time, but my mother was first married at nine, and divorced by 10, before going through another two marriages. She had me in her early teens.

“I wanted to stay at school and get a good job, but my parents could not afford it. They did not want me to live in poverty forever. I did not understand their decision to marry me off – only that the same thing happened to most girls my age.”