Child Abuse

One of the strongest themes that emerges from I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced by Nujood Ali is that of child abuse. Certainly to the West forcing a child to marry at age ten is an unforgivable and blatant form of child abuse. Although the age of consent for a girl to marry was older than ten, that law was often ignored and abused. If the father of a young girl consented to her marriage and all the uncles in the family agreed, then such a union was apparently legal and binding. But “legal and binding” doesn’t erase the fact that it is still child abuse – no matter the country or culture.

Nujood lived in terror of her “husband” bursting into her room each night and raping her repeatedly. The contention that the men in the family made the crime okay, didn’t do a thing...