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Equality Now Website
Includes Recommended Actions.
November 2010
SAUDI ARABIA - EQUALITY NOW CALL TO
END CHILD
MARRIAGES & MALE GUARDIANSHIP
OVER WOMEN
Equality Now has been informed of several cases of Saudi girls being married off at the behest of their male guardians. The most recent case concerns 12-year-old Fatima from Najran who was married on 5 October 2010 to a 50 year old man who already has a wife and ten children, most much older than Fatima. Her father Ali, who is unemployed and addicted to drugs, sold her in marriage for a sum of 40,000 Saudi Riyals (approximately US$ 10,665), which he used to buy himself a car. Reportedly, Fatima’s husband bought her a PlayStation as a wedding gift. Fatima, who has not yet fully reached puberty, now lives with her husband and his family. According to her paternal uncle Mohamed, Fatima’s husband has subjected her to sexual relations. Fatima’s paternal grandfather and uncle were strongly opposed to the marriage but could not prevent it because Fatima’s father, as her male guardian, has the right under Saudi law to marry her off at any age to whomever he pleases. Fatima’s grandfather and uncle are frustrated that the Saudi legal system recognizes only the right of the father and not the right and interest of the child. They are also concerned that Fatima’s two younger sisters Noura, age 9, and Basma, age 7, may be subjected to a similar fate. TAKE ACTION!
In June 2009, Equality Now issued a news alert highlighting the case of Amneh Mohamed Sharahili, a 10 year old school girl, who was to be married by her father to a 25-year-old Saudi man. Equality Now called on the government of Saudi Arabia to prevent Amneh’s marriage and to ban all child marriages by enacting and enforcing a law establishing a minimum age of marriage. Since we issued our alert we have been unable to get news of Amneh and we fear her father has married her off. In our June 2009 alert, we also highlighted the reported case of an eight-year-old girl from Onaiza who had been married by her father to a middle-aged man to settle a debt. The mother of the girl petitioned for a divorce but the Saudi court held that it was the male guardian’s right to contract such a marriage and only the girl (and not her mother) could contest her own marriage when she reached puberty. In that case, due in part to international outcry, the husband was reportedly prevailed upon to grant the eight-year-old a divorce.
Child marriages continue to be prevalent in Saudi Arabia despite clear evidence that such marriages have severe negative physical, emotional, psychological, intellectual and sexual implications on children. Child marriage violates the human rights of girls by excluding them from decisions regarding the timing of marriage and choice of spouse. It may mark an abrupt initiation into sexual relations, often with a husband who is considerably older and a relative stranger. Premature pregnancy carries significant health risks and pregnancy-related deaths are the leading cause of death for girls aged 15-19 years worldwide. Early marriage also jeopardizes girls’ right to education. In addition, married girls have few social connections, restricted mobility, limited control over resources, and little power in their new households, and studies by UNICEF have found domestic violence to be common in child marriages.
Saudi Arabia has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Article 1 of the CRC defines the child as “every human being below the age of eighteen years.” Article 16(2) of CEDAW states that the “betrothal and the marriage of a child shall have no legal effect, and all necessary action, including legislation, shall be taken to specify a minimum age for marriage and to make the registration of marriages in an official registry compulsory.” Article 16(1) (b) of CEDAW also stipulates that women shall have the same right as men “freely to choose a spouse and to enter into marriage only with their free and full consent.” However, Saudi Arabia has neither defined a minimum age of marriage nor taken steps to ban child marriages. On the contrary, Saudi Arabia’s commonly accepted practice of male guardianship over women, where a woman is considered to be under the guardianship of her father or closest male relative all her life, is directly contradictory to international human rights standards. The combined effect of the lack of a minimum age of marriage and practice of male guardianship over women mean that a Saudi girl can be forced into marriage at any age at the wish of her male guardian.
Saudi law is not codified, rather the legal system is based on individual judges applying their interpretations of shariah (Islamic law). Although some agencies of the Saudi government, such as the Ministry of Justice and the Human Rights Commission have spoken out against child marriages and have instituted some intermediate steps such as requiring the age of marriage on marriage contracts, these are not enough to be a deterrent to male guardians, like Fatima’s father, who choose to sell their (sometimes prepubescent) daughters into marriage, or to adult (often middle-aged) men who seek to marry and have sexual intercourse with child brides. Under the current Saudi legal system, the only effective solution to this issue would be an edict from the Saudi King prohibiting child marriages, establishing punishments for those who enter into or facilitate such unions, and overturning the system of male guardianship, which informs all aspects of women’s lives in Saudi Arabia.