I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced

Epilogue

Clinging tightly to Shada’s hand in her pretty purple dress, Nujood flashes smiles on all sides. Her movements are shy, but she has a determined look in her eyes.

“Another shot!” yell the paparazzi.

On November 10, 2008, in New York City, the youngest divorcée in the world has just been named a Woman of the Year by Glamour. With all the gravitas of her ten years, she shares this unexpected honor with the film star Nicole Kidman, the American secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, and Senator Hillary Clinton, among others. That’s quite a feat for this little Yemeni girl, this once anonymous victim who has suddenly become a heroine for our time, and who today aspires to return to a normal life, one she richly deserves.

Nujood has won. And she’s proud of that. The thing that struck me immediately, when Nujood and I first met in June 2008, two months after her divorce, was precisely her self-confidence. It was as if her incredible struggle had made her grow up all at once, by casually stealing away the lovely innocence of childhood.

She’d sounded so grown-up when carefully explaining to me, over the phone, the slightest details of the route to take to find her unassuming little house, lost in the labyrinth of dusty streets in Dares, on the outskirts of Sana’a, the capital of Yemen.

When I arrived, she was waiting for me near a busy gas station, wrapped in a black veil, with her younger sister Haïfa by her side. “I’ll be near the candy vendor,” she had told me, betraying the sweet tooth of children her age. Almond-shaped eyes, a baby face, an angelic smile. Seemingly a girl like any other, who likes candy, dreams of having a big TV, and plays blindman’s buff with her brothers and sisters. Deep down, however, she is a real little lady, matured by her ordeal, who smiles today to hear the congratulatory cries of “Mabrouk!” called out to her by the women of Sana’a when they recognize her as she passes by.

Husnia al-Kadri, the director of women’s affairs at the University of Sana’a, confided to me not long ago that “Nujood’s divorce kicked down a closed door.” Husnia al-Kadri was in charge of a recent study revealing that more than half the girls in Yemen get married before the age of eighteen.

Yes, it’s true: Nujood’s story carries a message of hope. In this country of the Arabian Peninsula, where the marriage of little girls draws on traditions that until now have seemed unshakable, her unbelievable act of bravery has encouraged other small voices to speak out against their husbands. After Nujood’s day in court, two other girls-Arwa, nine years old, and Rym, twelve-also undertook the legal struggle to break their barbaric bonds of matrimony. In neighboring Saudi Arabia, one year after Nujood’s historic court case, an eight-year-old Saudi girl married off by her father to a man in his fifties successfully sued for divorce-the first time such a thing has happened in that ultraconservative country.

In February 2009, the Yemeni parliament finally passed a new law raising the legal age of consent to seventeen for both boys and girls. In addition, in an attempt to prevent the formation of “overextended” families like Nujood’s, who are often unable to care properly for their children, this law allows a man to marry more than one wife only when he is financially able to support this extra burden. The women’s rights associations of Yemen have taken a wait-and-see attitude toward this victory, however, because although the law was passed by a majority of the parliamentary deputies, President Ali Abdullah al-Saleh has yet to put it into effect.

Perhaps Nujood does not realize this yet, but she has shattered a taboo. The news of her divorce traveled around the world, relayed by many international media, bringing an end to the silence enshrouding a practice that is unfortunately all too widespread in a number of other countries: Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Iran, Mali, Pakistan… If her story touches us so deeply, however, it’s also because it impels us to take a good look at ourselves. In the West, it’s fashionable to instinctively bemoan the fate of Muslim women, yet conjugal violence and the practice of child marriage are hardly restricted to the Islamic world.

In Yemen, many factors drive fathers to marry off their daughters before they reach puberty. Husnia al-Kadri reminds us that “poverty, local customs, and a lack of education play a role.” Family honor, the fear of adultery, the settling of scores between rival tribes-the reasons cited by the parents are many and various. Out in the countryside, adds al-Kadri, there is even a tribal proverb: “To guarantee a happy marriage, marry a nine-year-old girl.”

For many people, sadly, child marriages are customary, even normal. Nadia al-Saqqaf, the editor in chief of the Yemen Times, told me recently that a girl of nine married to a Saudi man died three days after her wedding. Instead of demanding an investigation of this scandalous situation, her parents hastened to apologize to the husband, as if trying to make amends for defective merchandise, and even offered him, in exchange, the dead child’s seven-year-old sister. Nujood’s rebellion, honorable in our eyes, is moreover considered by conservatives as an outrageous affront, punishable, according to extremists, by a murderous “honor crime.”

After the glitz and glitter of New York, the everyday reality of our little Yemeni heroine is still far, unfortunately, from the pleasant world of fairy tales.

It was Nujood’s wish to return to live with her parents. Nujood’s family has broken off all ties with her former husband, and no one knows where he is. At home, her older brothers resent the international attention aroused by her divorce. The neighbors complain about the comings and goings of foreign television crews. And not all the many people who come to hear her story are well-intentioned.

Shada as well is not beyond the reach of threats and danger. Her detractors accuse her of promoting a negative image of Yemen. Meanwhile, out in the countryside, nongovernmental organizations are attempting to educate the rural population about the problems linked to early marriage, while remaining sensitive to local traditions. For example, Oxfam, the organization that is by far the most invested in this project, must weigh its words carefully when it organizes consciousness-raising workshops in the southern part of the country. Instead of discussing “the legal age of marriage,” Oxfam prefers to talk about a “safe age,” emphasizing the risks linked to child marriage: psychological trauma, death in childbirth, dropping out of school. The task remains a difficult one, however. “Several of our colleagues who work out in the field have already become the objects of fatwas issued by the local sheikhs, who accuse them of promoting Western decadence and not respecting Islam,” says Souha Bashren, the special projects manager at Oxfam. It would seem that the path to a more enlightened future is a long and tortuous one.

In Nujood’s neighborhood, the lights don’t shine the way they do in New York. In the winter it’s cold, and heating a home is expensive. In Sana’a, the long evening gowns remain behind their shop windows. Every morning someone must go buy bread for the whole family. Often the alarm clock fails to ring, and Nujood’s big brothers doze until midday. As for her father, who is ill and sometimes feverish, he has not yet found work. Nujood’s mother increasingly forgets to attend to even the slightest household chores.

Overwhelmed by the stress of family troubles, Nujood and her younger sister Haïfa had to withdraw from their neighborhood school. After a difficult period, however, both girls are now preparing to attend a private school that offers a more supportive educational environment. The royalties from Nujood’s book, which is being translated into sixteen languages, have already begun helping finance the girls’ schooling and contributing to the support of the family, paying for food, rent, school supplies, and clothing for the children. Later, the money will help Nujood pursue her desire to become a lawyer and to establish a foundation to assist young girls in difficulties. A generous soul, Nujood also dreams of someday building a proper house for her whole family.

Whenever I travel to Sana’a, she asks me to bring her colored pencils. Crouching on the floor of the modest living room, she always draws the same colourful building with plenty of windows. One day, I asked her if it was a house, a school, or a boarding school.

“It’s the house of joy,” she replied with a big smile. “The house of happy little girls.”

DELPHINE MINOUI

SEPTEMBER 2009