In yet another shocking incident, an 8-year-old girl lost her life on her wedding night owing to internal injuries, that disturbed the families of bride and groom. The young girl was married to a man who was five times older than her.
This incident was reported by the Kuwaiti daily Al Watan (citing a local Yemeni newspaper called Al Mashhad), identified as Rawan drew her last breath due to internal haemorrhaging related to vaginal tearing the night after she got married to a 40-year-old man in northwestern Yemen.
“On the wedding night and after intercourse, she suffered from bleeding and uterine rupture which caused her death,” Othman said. “They took her to a clinic but the medics couldn’t save her life.”
Othman, head of Yemen’s House of Folklore and a leading rights campaigner said authorities had not taken any action against the girl’s family or her husband either.
Mosleh Al Azzani who is the director of Criminal Investigation in Haradh district where the marriage was scheduled to have taken place, said that “When I heard the rumours, I called the girl’s father. He came with his daughter and denied the marriage and death of his daughter. I have the photos of the girl and will show it to anyone.”
“The man moved to Haradh 20 days ago. He is the father of Rawan, another married daughter, and a son. I am ready to call them again if any journalist wants to investigate this issue,” he added that he did not receive any details from the local hospital regarding the death of the girl.
Aziz Saleh who is a journalist by trait, he runs a local website, said that he phoned the local authority’s office who denied the news. “All of them maintained that neither the marriage nor death had taken place,” he said
In the capital, Ahmad Al Qurishi, the head of SEYAJ Organisation for Childhood Protection, NGO that advocates children’s rights, said that government and judicial officials in the province of Hajja snubbed the information about the marriage and death.
“I got in touch with the director of Criminal Investigation, Hajja’s prosecutor and the province’s security chief who all flatly denied the story,” he said.
Al Qurishi said, adding that his organisation performed its own investigation into the issue by sending some activists to the area. “The preliminary results show that the story was untrue.”
The journalist who initially covered up the story claims that it is true and that was reported by officials. The journalist who wrote the controversial story insisted that his story was ‘correct’ and based on the information collected from girl’s neighbours.
Mohammad Radman, identified as a freelance journalist commented on the officials’ refusal by saying that the girl’s neighbours told him the girl was ‘dead and buried’.
“They are willing to give their testimony on this issue. I think the officials are trying to bury the story.” he said. Two Meedi residents contacted by Reuters had further confirmed the incident and said tribal chiefs had tried to cover up the incident when the news leaked, warning a local journalist against reporting the story.
(Source: Gulf News Yemen)