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Saudi Arabia: Judge cancels marriage of teenage girl with old man
25-10-2008
QATIF, Saudi Arabia, (Arab News): The chief judge of the Qatif Shariah Court, Saeed Madlouh, nullified on Wednesday the marriage of a man aged more than 70 with a 14-year-old girl following the girl’s complaint to the court.
The girl went to the court with her divorced mother and told the judge to save her life as her father had forced her to marry a man who was older than her grandfather.
She also complained that her stepmother asked her father to get rid of her in any way possible, Al-Riyadh newspaper reported yesterday.
The girl, whose name was not published, is a student of the first standard at an intermediate school in Qatif. She has not been attending the school for some time fearing her father would take her home by force. The girl is staying with her mother now.
The judge said in the judgment that the marriage was illegal even though it had been registered because the girl did not agree to the marriage.
“After examining the documents of the case, I am convinced that the petitioner was forced by her father to get married.
“The girl did not publicly express her unwillingness to the marriage because her father had threatened to punish her severely if she objected to the marriage. It is under this situation that the girl ran away from her father’s house to her mother and sought the court’s protection,” the judge said in his ruling.
The judge added that he was handing down the verdict in the spirit of the Shariah law.
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