no words, except that it is happening right now

Child Bride, 12, Dies While Giving Birth

A 12-year-old child bride has died after struggling to give birth to a baby for three days, a human rights organisation in Yemen has said.

Fawziya Abdullah Youssef suffered severe bleeding while giving birth to a stillborn infant in Hodeida province, 140 miles (223km) west of the capital San'a, on Friday.

She was only 11 when her father married her to a 24-year-old man who works as a farmer in Saudi Arabia, according to Ahmed al Quraishi from the Siyaj organisation, which promotes the rights of children in Yemen.

He said he stumbled upon Fawziya in the al Zahra district hospital while investigating cases of youngsters who had fled from fighting in the north of the country.

"This is one of many cases that exist in Yemen," Mr al Quraishi said.

"The reason behind it is the lack of education and awareness, forcing many girls into marriage in this very early age.".......

via

truth and justice

and the "american way"

NOT the america i know and love

Disappeared in the Name of National Security

Mohamed Farag Bashmilah

From October 2003 until May 2005, I was illegally detained by the U.S. government and held in CIA-run "black sites" with no contact with the outside world. On May 5, 2005, without explanation, my American captors removed me from my cell and cuffed, hooded, and bundled me onto a plane that delivered me to Sana'a, Yemen. I was transferred into the custody of my own government, which held me -- apparently at the behest of the United States -- until March 27, 2006, when I was finally released, never once having faced any terrorism-related charges. Since my release, the U.S. government has never explained why I was detained and has blocked all attempts to find out more about my detention.

What I do know is that the Jordanian government -- after torturing me for several days -- handed me over to a U.S. "rendition team" in Amman, which then abducted me, forced me onto a plane, and flew me to Afghanistan. During this, and several other transfers between CIA prisons, I was subjected to a brutal and deeply humiliating "preparation" ritual. I was stripped naked, dressed in a diaper, shackled, blindfolded and hooded, and then boarded onto a waiting plane. I was forced into painful positions, often reeling from the blows and kicks of the men who had "prepared" me for flight........................

nujood ali, hero of mine, rape survivor, divorcee oh and 10 year old

and most likely she is still in line for an honor killing because of course EVEN AT 10, BEING SOLD TO A 30+ YEAR OLD WHO BEAT AND RAPED HER DAILY, SHE HAS 'DISGRACED HER FAMILY' (by wanting to be a human being instead of a sold object)

A 10-Year-Old Divorcée Takes Paris
Old Divorcée Takes Paris

In a dimly lit corner of a Paris bar a delighted young divorcée describes in a soft voice how she spent the day throwing snowballs for the first time in her life. That is not remarkable. This is: Nujood Ali is just 10 years old — and was, until recently, the youngest known divorced person in the world.

Slender with thick hair and a shy smile, Ali made headlines in Yemen last April when she walked out on a man more than three times her age, to whom her father had married her off. It was an act driven by terror and despair. (See the top 10 crime stories of 2008.)

Nujood's ordeal began last February, when the family gathered to celebrate her wedding to a motorcycle deliveryman in his 30s. She first set eyes on the groom when she took her marriage vows. After spending her wedding night with her parents and 15 brothers and sisters, Nujood was taken by her new husband to his family village, where, she says, he beat and raped her every night. After two nightmarish months he allowed her to visit her parents, who rebuffed her pleas to end the marriage.

Nujood finally found her moment to escape one day, when her mother gave her a few pennies and sent her out to buy bread. Instead she took a bus to the center of the capital, Sanaa — a city of 3 million people — where she hailed a taxi and asked to be taken to the courthouse. She had never been inside a courtroom but had once seen one on television, she says, and knew it was a place where people went for help. There she sat silently on a bench, uncertain as to what to do, while crowds of people scurried past, scarcely glancing at the quiet child. It was only once the courthouse emptied during the lunch recess that the judge noticed her and asked why she was there. "I came for a divorce," she told him. Horrified, he took her to his house to play with his 8-year-old daughter, and granted the divorce two days later................

picture:

Nujood Ali

BORIS HORVAT/AFP/Getty

this shouldn't have happened to anyone

(forced marriage, beatings, rape) much less A TEN YEAR OLD

for her courage and bravery i salute Nujood Ali (and her lawyer shada nasser as well).

man, look at how beautiful those two are!

10-year-old girl's inspiring story opens eyes at Glamour awards

BY SEAN EVANS
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

The most talked about honoree of the 2008 Glamour Women of the Year awards was a small child of 10. Nujood Ali, who flew all the way from her native Yemen for the ritzy Carnegie Hall gala, was married off by impoverished parents to a 30-year-old man who raped and abused her.

Her father, who drew an annual salary equivalent to $900, had 18 children and couldn't afford to clothe and feed Ali so he gave her up for marriage. Though her older husband promised to wait years before becoming intimate with his child bride, he beat her and raped her on their wedding night. Ali had enough.............

Two Voices against Child Marriage and for Education

Nujood Ali, a 10-year girl old from Yemen who courageously escaped from and filed for divorce from a forced marriage, and her lawyer, Shada Nasser, addressed an audience at UNIFEM headquarters today. Both are to receive a Woman of the Year Award from Glamour magazine.

Nujood Ali was married off to a man in his 30s when she was only nine years old. Many little girls in her native Yemen and around the world suffer this kind of fate — but Nujood wouldn't stand for it. After suffering repeated beatings and rape from her husband, she ran away and went directly to the courthouse, asking for a lawyer who could help her. Human rights lawyer and feminist Shada Nasser took on her case free of charge and made history this April by winning Nujood a divorce from her husband, sending a message to the rest of Yemen that marrying girls at such premature ages would not be tolerated. Nujood, now 10, is back at her family's home on the outskirts of Sana'a and has said: "All I want to do now is finish my education. I want to be a lawyer."

Most experts say education is crucial in eradicating the cultural practice of child marriage. The Girls World Communication Center (GWCC) was founded by volunteers in 1998 to help promote female schooling in Yemen, where 65 percent of women are illiterate. ........

picture: DeCrow/AP

Nujood Ali, a 10-year old Yemeni girl, and her lawyer Shada Nasser leave the stage after being honored at the Glamour Women of the Year awards.

i never heard of

socotra island. i want to go (although it does belong to yemen and i do NOT wish to go there).

i found these pictures via dark roasted blend

i can't believe how cool this island looks.

let's get this straight

people from yemen actually attacked us. there are KNOWN terrorists in yemen. some of these terrorists killed united states military members. begrudgingly, the yemeni government put some of the terrorists in jail. they also released them after a very short stint.

do we attack yemen? nope, we attack iraq. makes sense to me, no? (NO)


Probe of USS Cole Bombing Unravels
Plotters Freed in Yemen; U.S. Efforts Frustrated

By Craig WhitlockWashington Post Foreign Service
ADEN, Yemen -- Almost eight years after al-Qaeda nearly sank the USS Cole with an explosives-stuffed motorboat, killing 17 sailors, all the defendants convicted in the attack have escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials.
Jamal al-Badawi, a Yemeni who helped organize the plot to bomb the Cole as it refueled in this Yemeni port on Oct. 12, 2000, has broken out of prison twice. He was recaptured both times, but then secretly released by the government last fall. Yemeni authorities jailed him again after receiving complaints from Washington. But U.S. officials have so little faith that he's still in his cell that they have demanded the right to perform random inspections.
Two suspects, described as the key organizers, were captured outside Yemen and are being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. courts. Many details of their alleged involvement remain classified. It is unclear when -- or if -- they will be tried by the military. ........

person of the month:

Nojoud Muhammed Nasser. who is she? she is an EIGHT YEAR OLD GIRL in yeman. why is she the person of the month? because she had the courage to bring her father to court for forcing her to marry a 30 year old man. even better, the judge (IN YEMAN) actually prosecuted her father AND her husband.
8-year-old girl asks for divorce in court
SANA’A, April 9 - An eight-year-old girl decided last week to go the Sana’a West Court to prosecute her father, who forced her to marry a 30-year-old man.Nojoud Muhammed Nasser arrived at court by herself on Wednesday, April 2, looking for a judge to handle her case against her father, Muhammed Nasser, who forced her two months ago to marry Faez Ali Thamer, a man 22 years her senior. The child also asked for a divorce, accusing her husband of sexual and domestic abuse. According to Yemeni law, Nojoud cannot prosecute, as she is underage. However, court judge Muhammed Al-Qathi heard her complaint and subsequently ordered the arrests of both her father and husband.“My father beat me and told me that I must marry this man, and if I did not, I would be raped and no law and no sheikh in this country would help me. I refused but I couldn’t stop the marriage,” Nojoud Nasser told the Yemen Times. “I asked and begged my mother, father, and aunt to help me to get divorced. They answered, ‘We can do nothing. If you want you can go to court by yourself.’ So this is what I have done,” she said. ..............

..............Thamer is in jail now. “Yes I was intimate with her, but I have done nothing wrong, as she is my wife and I have the right and no one can stop me," he said.................
(shout out to feministing)