8-Year-Old Girl Finally Granted Divorce
8-Year-Old Girl Finally Granted Divorce
It’s rare to hear “child bride” and “good news” in the same sentence. Same goes for “divorce” and “good news”. But this week, the stars magically aligned to give us some good divorce news about a child bride: An 8-year-old Saudi girl has finally been permitted to divorce her 47-year-old husband.
The girl, whose name has been withheld (the first reasonable action in this whole mess), was sold by her father to a close friend of his to settle his debts with the man. After the “sell-off” (there was no ceremony), the girl continued to live with her mother, and was not even aware that she was married until December of last year.
Saudi courts had twice denied the girl’s request, once on a technicality that the girl’s mother, who filed the documents, as not actually her legal guardian (somehow, this is an issue, whereas allowing an 8-year-old to marry is not).
During the second unsuccessful trial, the judge ordered that the girl’s husband sign a pledge that he would not have sex with her until she reached puberty. Ironically, this contradicted an agreement the girl’s husband had made with her father, which stated the marriage could not be consummated until she turned 18.
When the case was first made public last December, it sparked condemnations from human rights groups around the world. In response, Saudi Arabia's justice minister announced that he planned to enact a law that will protect young girls from such marriages.
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