12-year-old Yemeni child-bride died after struggling for three days in labor to give birth, a local human rights organization said Saturday.

Fawziya Abdullah Youssef died of severe bleeding on Friday while giving birth to a stillborn in the al-Zahra district hospital of Hodeida province, 140 miles (223 kilometers) west of the capital San'a.

Child marriages are widespread in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, where tribal customs dominate society. More than a quarter of the country's females marry before age 15, according to a recent report by the Social Affairs Ministry.

Youssef was only 11 when her father married her to a 24-year-old man who works as a farmer in Saudi Arabia, said Ahmed al-Quraishi, chairman of Siyaj human rights organization, which promotes the rights of children in Yemen.

Al-Quraishi said that he stumbled upon Youssef in the hospital while investigating cases of children who had fled from the fighting in the north.

"This is one of many cases that exist in Yemen," said al-Quraishi. "The reason behind it is the lack of education and awareness, forcing many girls into marriage in this very early age."

Impoverished parents in Yemen sometimes give away their young daughters in return for hefty dowries. There is also a long-standing tribal custom in which infant daughters and sons are promised to cousins in hopes it will protect them from illicit relationships, he said.

Al-Quraishi said there are no statistics to show how many marriages involving children are performed every year.

The issue of child brides vaulted into the headlines here two years ago when an 8-year-old Yemeni girl went by herself to a courtroom and demanded a judge dissolve her marriage to a man in his 30s. She eventually won a divorce, and legislators began looking at ways to curb the practice.

In February, parliament passed a law setting the minimum marriage age at 17. But some lawmakers are trying to kill the measure, calling it un-Islamic. Before it could be ratified by Yemen's president, they forced it to be sent back to parliament's constitutional committee for review.

Such marriages also occur in neighboring oil-rich Saudi Arabia, where several cases of child brides have been reported in the past year, though the phenomenon is not believed to be nearly as widespread as in Yemen.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090912/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_yemen_child_marriage;_ylt=AnfUJFlpe0vxg83O8icd8L0LewgF;_ylu=X3oDMTJ1cmI5NWF1BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkwOTEyL21sX3llbWVuX2
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Sick phuck pedophiles. Guess the motto old enough to bleed is old enough to breed applies here. Well Aisha was 9!

well teen pregancies is a common problem in the states... there case of 12 -13 years pregancies. besides i dont know why keep harping this on islam. islam clearly states marriages can take place when adults physically able to bear children. there is no age specified. by practice most muslims tend to marry when girls are 18-21 and men 21 to 25.

But having sex with an underage girl is a crime

this happens to white trash girls in essex in the united kingdom a lot

Really?? In UK fathers get their 11 year olds married to older men??

DISGUSTING FILTHY ANIMALS

Very sad story. Evidence that evil and ignorance are universal.





Provost

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States 1924-1929