'I was a mum-of-three by age 15 after being forced to marry man in his 30s'
When she was just 11, Noora Al Shami was tragically dressed in adult attire, oblivious to the horrific ordeal she would face later that evening when her 35 year old cousin and husband-to-be took her home to assault her.
During a three-day celebration in Yemen's port city of Al Hudaydah, Noora donned "three beautiful dresses" at the family event, only to be plunged into years of sexual abuse by Mohammed Al Ahdam.
For young Noora, dressing up seemed like innocent fun, but it was a grim prelude to the trauma ahead. "I was allowed to wear adult clothes, to put on jewellery, to accept presents," Noora, now aged 47, told The Guardian.
"What had not dawned on me was that I would be abused by a violent criminal."
The first time Al Ahdam exposed himself to Noora, she fled. She managed to evade the attack for 10 days until Al Ahdam's sisters accused her of "bringing shame on our brother by rejecting him", reports the Express.
When the rape occurred, Noora's body went into shock.
"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."
Al Ahdam, a much older distant cousin, wed Noora in 1989 right after she turned 11. "He was three times my age and saw marriage as a means to act like a depraved animal," Noora said.
In 2021, UNICEF reported a staggering 4 million child brides in Yemen.
Decades on from Noora's own underage marriage, Human Rights Watch data revealed in 2006, 14% of Yemeni girls were wed by 15, with over half married before turning 18.
Families often marry off daughters to lessen their financial burden in exchange for a dowry, despite the lack of protection for young girls under Islamic law.
"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 endured two miscarriages within a year, before giving birth to her son Ihab at just 13.
Her daughter Ahlam arrived when Noora was 14, followed by another son, Shihab, at 15, with each pregnancy fraught with complications.
Her husband Al Ahdam's violence escalated. "He thought nothing of hitting me, even when I was pregnant," Noora recounted.
"If his father hadn't been in the house, it would have been even worse. His presence was some kind of restraint, but I was still very badly injured."
Al Adham also turned his cruelty towards their children, once grabbing their daughter Alham by the feet and slamming her onto the floor, resulting in a hospital visit for the two-year-old, bleeding and hurt.
After enduring ten years of appalling abuse, Noora found solace in a programme spearheaded by Oxfam and the Yemeni Women's Union that supports domestic violence survivors. She then took the bold step to file for divorce.
The struggle didn't end there. Noora engaged in a legal tussle for financial support to raise her children. Her resilience saw her return to education, qualify as a teacher, and she now fervently advocates for tighter laws on child marriage.
Noora refuses to be shackled by the "ruins of the past". "We need to change the lives of our children, and not just by paper laws," she insists.
"We need a complete change in culture. It's not really something that the law has been able to control, especially not in tribal communities," Noora admits.
"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."
Despite Noora's and other activists' efforts to increase the legal marriage age from 15 to 18, physical and psychological scars are often lifelong.
Yet, even with potential legal amendments, Islamic law does not stipulate a minimum marriage age, and Yemeni clerics frequently contest any statutory limitations.
Today, 30 per cent of girls in Yemen wed before they turn 18 and 7 per cent marry before they reach 15, as reported by the advocacy group Girls Not Brides.
If this article has affected you, please get in touch with SARSAS at info@sarsas.org.uk or seek advice from the NHS on help after rape or sexual assault.
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