Nojoud Ali

Nojoud Ali Muhammed Nasser , also Nodschud Ali , Arabic نجود علي, DMG Nuǧūd ʿAlī , English translation Nujood Ali (* 1998 in Khardji , Yemen ), is a Yemeni activist and author . The divorce of her forced marriage with a man 22 years older, which she got through at the age of ten, caused a sensation worldwide. With the help of a French journalist, she wrote a book about her fate that became a world bestseller .

Life

Nojoud Ali was born in the village of Khardji in northern Yemen. Her family lived in poverty . Her father, Mohammad Ali Al-Ahdal, who with his two legal wives had a total of 16 children, was unemployed and Nojoud's brothers and sisters were begging . The Ali family later moved to the vicinity of the capital Sanaa . Before she got married, Ali only attended a class of 40 to 50 students there for one year and was then forcibly married by her father to a man 22 years older than him in January 2008 for a payment of the equivalent of 1,100 euros, and then physically forced to consent.

She was physically abused and raped several times by her husband . At the beginning of April 2008, she sought help from her family, who, however, were unable to do so due to the legal situation after the marriage. From the second wife of her father came the hint that she “ could go to court ”. Ali escaped from her husband and went to the West District Court in Sanaa . There she found at the judge Muhammed Al-Qathi support, both Nojouds husband as well as her father temporary custody was taking. The reasons for detention were child trafficking and the rape of minors.

In the subsequent trial Ali received free help from the Yemeni lawyer and women's rights activist Shada Nasser, who filed a divorce petition. Meanwhile, Ali had been admitted to his home by the judge for a while. The marriage was divorced in mid-April 2008. However, Ali had to pay her ex-husband compensation, the so-called Chulʿ , amounting to the equivalent of $ 500; the amount was paid for by donors.

The case was first brought to the public by Nadia Abdulaziz Al-Sakkaf's Yemen Times , a three-day Yemeni newspaper which openly denounces grievances and advocates reform and the rule of law. The April 9, 2009 report in the Yemen Times on the divorce of the underage Ali was swiftly picked up by the international mass media and caused a worldwide sensation and long-lasting media interest.

According to a corresponding article by the German Press Agency in Germany , the Süddeutsche Zeitung and Die Welt am Sonntag reported on Ali's fate, in the USA the Los Angeles Times wrote in June 2008 about the background to the “international headlines story”, and in France the French edition of the free newspaper metro dealt with the topic again in January 2009 and conducted an interview with her on the upcoming publication of the book by and about Nojoud Ali. In addition, there was a large number of reports worldwide in print media , radio and television as well as on the Internet .

Ali was supported by the US magazine Glamor as Woman of the Year 2008 ( Woman of the Year 2008 awarded), the award was presented to her in November 2008 in New York presented.

The French journalist and Middle East correspondent for Figaro , Delphine Minoui , who lives in Lebanon , became aware of the case in April 2008 and won the trust of Ali, who told her her story. The autobiographical book about Ali's two-and-a-half-month forced marriage and the subsequent divorce was first published in French and was published by the French publisher Michel Lanfon under the title Divorcée à dix at the end of January 2009. The first German-language edition was published in February 2009 by Knaur Verlag in Munich . The book by Ali / Minoui has now appeared in more than eight countries and has become a worldwide bestseller. Najoud Ali, however, laments the fact that, apart from an initial severance payment of the equivalent of 3000 euros, she does not receive any financial income from the book sale and Delphine Minoui broke off contact with her after the book was published.

In the meantime, Ali has received further awards and honors in various countries. For example, in March 2009 in Vienna she was honored with the World Hope Award as part of the Women's World Awards 2009 , although Ali was unable to accept the award in person as she was not allowed to leave her home country.

Nojoud Ali continues to live in poverty and is now significantly restricted in her freedom of movement because of the unwelcome media presence in the country of Yemen. Her passport was withdrawn and participation in the Women's World Awards 2009 was denied. Her father is still the legal guardian. The only source of income for the Nojoud Alis family of 19 is begging.

Nojoud Ali wants to work together with the lawyer Shada Nasser to ensure that other girls are saved from forced marriage.

In March 2010 it appeared in the Los Angeles Times an article about Ali's life two years after her divorce. The family's situation improved noticeably after moving to a new house. The income from the license fees for the book, which has meanwhile been published in several languages, contributed to this, which Nojoud Ali and her relatives received one year after it was first published.

Unfortunately, the legal security of being able to dispose of this income is not stipulated for the girl under the laws of her home country. Your father as a legal guardian manages the financial inflows and decides how to use them.In addition, her engagement against forced marriage in a society that is characterized by tribalism and strictly Islamic ideas about life does not meet with approval and she is therefore exposed to harassment and harassment.

Legal situation

The legal minimum age for marriage for Yemeni girls was 15 in 2008 and has now been increased to 17. According to estimates by the head of the Department of Women's Studies at the University of Sanaa , Husnia al-Kadri, more than half of the girls have been married before the age of 15 . The effective age in the country, which is characterized by archaic structures, is unknown in many places, as there are no birth certificates and no IDs in the villages .

According to the law, men can have up to four wives in Yemen. Marriage was previously not only permitted as soon as the bride was 15 years old, but also earlier with the consent of the father as legal guardian. The traditional rule, according to which the husband has to wait until the end of puberty before the consummation of the marriage , is being broken more and more, reported the psychology professor Najat Sajam from the University of Sanaa in April 2008. The age of consent , the achievement of the ability to consent for sexual acts In Yemen in 1999 it was reduced from the previous 15 years to the beginning of puberty, whereby this usually means an age of only nine years.

After the Yemeni parliament rejected a change in the law in early 2009, the minimum age for marriages for girls was raised to 17 in March 2009. To ensure that this limit is observed, especially in rural areas, every marriage contract must be certified by a judge in future. In doing so, Parliament gave in to the international pressure created by the Nojoud Ali case and the worldwide reports on it.

Book publications (selection)

• Nojoud Ali (arr .: Delphine Minoui): Moi Nojoud, 10 ans, divorcée . Michel Lafon, Neuilly-sur-Seine (France) 2009, ISBN 978-2-7499-0976-9 . (French)
• Nojoud Ali (arr .: Delphine Minoui): Me, Nojoud, 10 years old, divorced . Knaur , Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-426-65470-5 . (Translated from the French by Andreas Riehle and Thomas Wollermann; original French title: Moi, Nojoud, 10 ans, divorcée )
• Nojoud Ali (arr .: Delphine Minoui): Me, Nojoud, 10 years old, divorced . Weltbild , Augsburg 2009 (= Weltbild-Reader), ISBN 978-3-8289-9613-7 . (Translated from the French by Andreas Riehle and Thomas Wollermann; licensed edition by Knaur-Verlag, Munich)

literature

• Calvin C. Jillson: American Government. Political Development and Institutional Change . 5th ed., Routledge, New York 2009, ISBN 978-0-415-99570-2 , p. 338. (English)
• Keren Soel: Women. The Status of Women in Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity . CreateSpace , Scotts Valley (California / USA) 2008, ISBN 978-1-4404-1750-4 , p. 97. (English)

Web links

• Literature by and about Nojoud Ali in the catalog of the German National Library
• 2 years after divorce March 9, 2010, article by Meris Lutz in the Los Angeles Times in English

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Little big woman: profil visited ten-year-old Yemeni Nojoud Ali in Sanaa , report by Emil Bobi in the Austrian news magazine profil on www.profil.at on March 14, 2009 (accessed on September 11, 2009).
2. ↑ Eight year old in Yemen obtains divorce. An innocent child, nothing else! ( Memento from January 22, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), report by Esther Saoub in the ARD Tagesschau , on www.tagesschau.de from April 16, 2009 (accessed on September 11, 2009).
3. ↑ Hamed Thabet: For the first time in Yemen. 8-year-old girl asks for divorce in court. In: Yemen Times, Volume: 18, Issue: 1145. April 9, 2008, archived from the original on May 4, 2009 ; accessed on May 9, 2014 (English). 
4. ↑ After forced marriage: Eight-year-old Yemeni fights for divorce (PDF; 14 kB), article by Frederik Obermaier from the German Press Agency , from April 16, 2008
5. ↑ How an eight-year-old managed to divorce after her forced marriage in Yemen , article by Silke Mertins in der Welt am Sonntag , on www.welt.de from April 27, 2008 (accessed on September 11).
6. ↑ Yemen child bride Nujood Ali gets divorce , article by Borzou Daragahi in the Los Angeles Times of June 11, 2008 (English; accessed September 11, 2009).
7. ↑ Divorcée à dix ans ( Memento of the original dated May 5, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Article by Alexandra Bogaert in the French edition of metro , on www.metrofrance.com from January 28, 2009 (French; accessed September 11, 2009). 
8. ↑ Carla Power: Women of the year 2008. Nujood Ali & Shada Nasser: The Voices for Children ( EN ) In: US-American magazine Glamor . August 2008. Archived from the original on September 2, 2009. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved September 11, 2009 .. 
9. ↑ Women's World Awards: Start without a ten-year-old winner , APA press release on Die Presse .com from March 5, 2009 (accessed on September 11, 2009).
10. ↑ 2 years after divorce
11. ^ RI Yemen seeks help for famous child bride Nojoud
12. ↑ ^{a b} "Ich, Nojoud, ten years, divorced" , article by Olga Grimm-Weissert in the Austrian daily Der Standard from February 4, 2009 (accessed September 11, 2009).
13. ↑ Forced marriage in Yemen. Eight years old and divorced ( Memento of the original from October 10, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung , on www.sueddeutsche.de from April 16, 2008 (accessed on September 11, 2009). 
14. ↑ Human Rights Watch : World Report 2000 - Yemen: Human Rights Developments (accessed September 11, 2009).
15. ↑ Children in divorce. A ten-year-old brings about a change in the law in Yemen ( memento of the original from July 9, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Report by Sabine Bitter at the Austrian radio station Ö1 , on oe1.orf.at from July 2009 (accessed on September 11, 2009).