Yemeni Girl, 12, Dies in Painful Childbirth
A 12-year-old Yemeni girl, who was forced into marriage, died along with her baby during a painful childbirth.
Fawziya Ammodi struggled for three days in labor, before dying of severe bleeding at a hospital on Friday, said the Seyaj Organization for the Protection of Children.
“Although the cause of her death was lack of medical care, the real case was the lack of education in Yemen and the fact that child marriages keep happening,” said Seyaj President Ahmed al-Qureshi.
Ammodi from Hodeidah was born into poverty and was forced to drop out of school and marry a 24-year-old man last year, al-Qureshi said.
Child brides are commonplace in Yemen. More than half of all young Yemeni girls are married off before the age of 18, often to older men with multiple wives.
The Yemeni parliament tried in February to pass a law, setting the minimum marriage age at 17. But the measure has not reached the president because many parliamentarians argued it violates sharia, or Islamic law, which does not stipulate a minimum age.
