Nujood Ali: “I made it possible for my father to buy new wives”

She escaped from her husband. Ran to court. Got a divorce. All at the age of 10. Publishing her memoirs, Nujood Ali from Yemen began to break down barriers. Five years on, we visit Nujood to see how she is getting on. Her life, it seems, has only gone from really bad to less bad.

The house I enter is dark and small. I am in Al Hasabah, an area of Sana’a where heavy fighting took place between government troops and tribesmen in the spring of 2011. On the bare concrete floor are some dirty mattresses and a jerry can with water. A wire without a light bulb hangs from the ceiling. The only decoration in the four square meter room is a poster of a car and one with Quranic verses.

I am confused. I was supposed to meet a girl rich by Yemeni standards. In the media Nujood was portrayed as a happy middle class girl, going to a private school, wanting to become a lawyer. My thoughts are interrupted when Nujood steps out of the darkness, wearing her best dress.

“I do not go to school anymore, maybe next year,” Nujood says with an apologetic look. “We had to flee during the war and ever since I didn’t go back to school. I do not live in my own house anymore, because my father lives there. He used to beat me, I cannot live with him.” His third wife kicked her out of the house that Nujood actually owns. It was bought for her with the help of the publisher of her book.  Full story...

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