An 11-year-old Yemeni girl ran away from home to escape an arranged marriage to an older man.
Nada al-Ahdal was saved from an arranged marriage only after her uncle intervened. In a video posted on YouTube, Nada says: “Go ahead and marry me off – I’ll kill myself.” While we shudder to think what our lives would be like to be married at 11, it is tradition in other cultures.
In America, girls are not considered adults until they turn 18. But in other parts of the world, girls become adults when they begin menstruating — usually around 12 years of age. In other cultures young girls are married off as early as 7 or 8 years old to ease the financial burden of families living in poverty. Love has nothing to do with it.
