SAUDI ARABIA: 8 YEAR-OLD FILES FOR DIVORCE, JUDGE TAKES TIME
(ANSAmed) - RIYADH, SEPTEMBER 10 - A Saudi judge asked to
decide on the request for divorce between an eight-year-old girl
and a man of 50 has taken his time until December 20 to rule on
the case, a lawyer of the family said.
The hearing on the divorce request, filed by the mother of
the girl, was held yesterday in the town of Unaizah, 420
kilometres north of Riyadh. Lawyer Abdallah Jtili said that in
the hearing the husband reiterated he did not agree with the
breaking up of the marriage. "The judge said he wanted to
reflect further on the matter and give time to the parties to
reach a mutual agreement before ruling on the case," the lawyer
said. The marriage of the girl, who does not know yet that she
has been given away as bride, was organised by the father. Some
relatives of the child reported the case in August to a Saudi
human rights association asking it to intervene in order to
annul the marriage.
Cases of girls given as brides to men are denounced from time
to time in Saudi Arabia, an ultra-conservative kingdom which
rigidly applies the fundamentalist Wahhabi Islam which allows
polygamy. In neighbouring Yemen an eight-year-old girl obtained
in April divorce after having denounced in the court her father
who had forced her to marry a 28-year-old man. (ANSAmed).
2008-09-10 11:17