Yemen divorcee reclaims childhood

By Delphine Minoui and Borzou Daragahi | Los Angeles Times

September 28, 2008

SAN‘A, Yemen - Still groggy, the schoolgirl brushed her hair, struggled to pull on her socks and snuggled into her school uniform: a green gown and a white head scarf.

By the time she gathered up her books and strapped on her backpack she was smiling and enthusiastic, her nervousness eclipsed by anticipation of the first day of class.

Like children across the world, 10-year-old Nujood Ali went back to school this month after a lengthy break. But Nujood hadn't been lazing about or playing hide-and-seek with her friends.

Instead, after she was pulled out of the second grade by her father earlier this year, she was married off to a man three times her age, who beat her and sexually abused her.

For many girls in this traditional society, where tribal custom and conservative interpretations of Islam dominate, that would have been the end of the story. But Nujood was outraged. She gathered up her courage and on the advice of an aunt went to court in April. She found a lawyer and filed for divorce.

A judge quickly granted it.

And on the morning of Sept. 16, the divorcee once again became a schoolgirl.

"I'm very happy to be going back to school," she said, waiting in her ramshackle home for her younger sister Haifa. "I'm going to study Arabic, the Quran, mathematics and drawing. I will do that with my classmates, and I will definitely make friends there."

Nujood's unusual story of rebellion made her an international celebrity. Since the Los Angeles Times wrote of her in June, CNN, Elle magazine and other international news media have come to this mountaintop city to chronicle her tale.

Hordes of nonprofit organizations offered to help her get back to school, some even willing to foot the bill to send her abroad or to a fancy private academy.

In the end, she opted for a small, government-run public school relatively close to her home. She would begin where she left off, starting second grade again.

Even then, it wasn't easy. One teacher said she worried whether Nujood would disturb other students by talking about her sexual experiences.

The night before she went to school, she said she dreamed of notebooks, drawings and new friends.

"When I left school, I learned how to count from one to 100," she said. "Now, I am going to learn how to count until a million."

Nujood said she wanted to study hard, to be able to attend university and become a lawyer like Shada Nasser, a well-known Yemeni human rights advocate who helped Nujood get her divorce.

The girl's experience, and her ambition, have served as an inspiration to her parents, uneducated rural people who moved to the city's outskirts a few years ago and say they married her off to protect her from the dangers of the city. "We were never asked if we wanted to go to school when we were children," said her father, Ali Mohammed Ahdal, who has two wives and 16 children. "If we had a choice, we would have loved to study like Nujood."

On the first day of school, Nujood and Haifa climbed into a taxi paid for by an Italian aid group and drove through the capital's smog-choked streets.

Outside the schoolhouse in Rawdha, Nasser stood waiting, eager to share a day she had anticipated. "I can't believe we finally made it," said the attorney, who agreed to drop the rest of her caseload and take up Nujood's cause after the girl showed up alone in a San'a courthouse in April.

They were welcomed by the principal, Njala Matri. "You are welcome here. You can feel at home," she said, smiling at Nujood.

Only about half of Yemeni girls attend primary school. Last year, one of the Rawdha school's 1,200 girls, a 13-year-old, dropped out to marry. "Now, she's a mother," Matri said in dismay.