Support Yemen: I will fight for my rights and break the silence
The Support Yemen campaign fights against child marriage. In this video and text, it calls on Yemenis to break the silence on women's and girls' rights.
Play video: Support Yemen: I will fight for my rights and break the silenceThe video loads from YouTube when you play it. This video may no longer be available on YouTube.
How long must we wait?
The campaign asks a series of questions:
- How much of little girls' childhood must be lost before we demand a law that protects our daughters?
- How many mothers in the countryside must die before women receive proper health care?
- How high must illiteracy rise before basic education becomes free and compulsory?
- How many victims must suffer before a law criminalises domestic violence?
- How many revolutions must women take part in before everyone accepts that they deserve a real place in the government and in parliament?
Women's rights are part of human rights. "I will fight for my rights and break the silence."
Take action
The campaign asked supporters to take a minute to send a letter or a fax to Yemen's decision-makers and help stop child marriage in Yemen. "Enough of raping young girls in the name of marriage," it said.
The letters were to be addressed to:
- Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, President of the Republic of Yemen, Sana'a;
- Judge Mursd Al-Arshani, Minister of Justice, Sana'a;
- Yahya Ali Al Raei, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Sana'a.
The letter
The model letter expresses deep concern about how common child marriage is in Yemen, and about the government's failure so far to ban it.
It recalls that Yemeni women played a key role in the 2011 revolution that led to the new government. Yemen needs the participation and support of all its citizens. Up to fifty percent of Yemeni girls are married before the age of 18. Allowing this means that Yemen is not nurturing its future.
International organisations such as the World Health Organization, UNICEF and UNFPA have stressed the harm child marriage does to girls: physical, emotional, psychological, intellectual and sexual. This includes septic abortion, stillbirths, death from early pregnancy, loss of education, few social ties, limited freedom of movement, little control over resources, little or no power in the new household, and a higher risk of domestic violence.
A law waiting in parliament
A draft law setting the minimum age of marriage for girls at 17, with penalties for those who break it, had been waiting in parliament since 2009. Passing it without delay would be a first step towards helping girls escape abuse and reach their potential.
Without a law banning child marriage, child brides must use the divorce laws to leave their marriages, instead of having them annulled as illegal. They must also pay back their dowry to obtain a divorce.
The letter gives one example. In 2009, an 11-year-old girl was married off by her father to a 40-year-old farmer, who raped her, beat her and tried to strangle her. She wanted to escape the abuse and continue her education, so she ran away from her husband's house. But she could not end the marriage without paying back her dowry, which her father had spent before he died.
What the letter asks
Ending child marriage is an international obligation of the Yemeni government under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Both contain provisions against the practice.
The letter asks the authorities to:
- make sure parliament considers and passes the draft child marriage law as soon as possible;
- enforce the law effectively once it is passed, and punish those who break it;
- protect and promote the rights of girls who have left or escaped child marriages, including access to safety, education and counselling.