Child Bride Died After Rape
Posted on 13 April 2010 by LynThomas in Society
13 year old Elham Assi, child bride, was tied up and forced to have sex with her husband. She later bled to death in a poverty stricken village in Shueba, Yemen.
Nijma Ahem, 50, the young bride’s mother said that before her daughter lost consciousness, she told her mother what had taken place. Eham Assi had only been married for a few days to a 23 year-old man. Abed al-Hikmi is now in police custody.
In Yemen a quarter of all females marry before the age of 15, according to a 2009 report by the country’s Ministry of Social Affairs. Traditional families prefer young brides because they are seen as more obedient and are expected to have more children and easier to keep away from temptation. Child brides can be valued at hundreds of dollars.
The legislation to ban child brides has been stalled by opposition from religious leaders. A February 2009 law set the minimum age for marriage at 17, but was repealed and sent back to parliament’s constitutional committee for review, after some lawmakers called it un-Islamic. The government refuses to make any comment.
Assi — one of eight siblings — was forced into marriage after an agreement between her brother and her husband to marry each other’s sisters, in order to avoid having to pay expensive bride-prices. This is a common arrangement in Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East.
According to the police the groom felt under pressure to prove his manhood, as he had been refused consummation of the marriage.
Al-Hikmi took his young bride to a nearby medical clinic, asking a doctor there to administer her tranquilizers so she would not resist his advances. The clinic refused. He then obtained performance enhancing pills, according to the police interrogation and that night completed the act while his bride screamed.
He had to carry his bride to the clinic the following day because she was unable to walk. Dr. Fathiya Haidar said Assi’s vaginal canal was ripped. Al-Hikmi was told to stay away from his bride for at least 10 days.
When a forensic report was obtained it revealed that Assi’s injuries were much greater, including extensive tearing around the vagina and rectum, suggesting that there might have been additional intercourse after the clinic visit.
Al-Hikmi told the girl’s mother that the young bride was possessed by spirits and said he would take her to a folk healer to cast them out. Hours later, Assi was dead.
The issue of Yemen’s child brides received widespread attention three years ago when an 8-year-old girl boldly went by herself to a courtroom and demanded a judge dissolve her marriage to a man in his 30s. She eventually won a divorce.
In September, a 12-year-old Yemeni child-bride died after struggling for three days in labor to give birth, a local human rights organization said.
