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An 11-year-old Yemeni girl who claims she ran away to escape an arranged marriage.
Nada al-Ahdal says she was only saved from the forced engagement after her uncle intervened.
‘Go ahead and marry me off – I’ll kill myself,’ she warns in the video, dated July 8, and posted on YouTube.
The practice of marrying young girls is widespread in Yemen and has attracted the attention of international rights groups seeking to pressure the government to outlaw child marriages.
More than a quarter of Yemen’s females marry before age 15, according to a report in 2010 by the Social Affairs Ministry.
Tribal custom also plays a role, including the belief that a young bride can be shaped into an obedient wife, bear more children and be kept away from temptation.
The girl in the video..nada..The schoolgirl. one of eight children, was taken in by her uncle Abdel Salam al-Ahdal, when she was aged three.
But when a Yemeni expatriate living in Saudi Arabia asked her parents if he could marry her, they readily agreed.
In an interview with National Yemen, Nada accuses her mother of arranging the marriage for profit.
‘But I’m not an item for sale,’ she says.
‘I’m a human being and I would rather die than get married at this age.’
Her parents were not happy the engagement was called off and demanded that Nada be returned home to them.
But following her return home, Nada disappeared after her parents tried to marry her off again against her will.
When her uncle found her again, he informed authorities and Nada was eventually allowed to return to live with her uncle, her father’s brother – she then posted the video online.
the actual video can be found here..
[video=youtube;DagCxoMJisc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=DagCxoMJisc[/video]