I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced
By Nujood Ali. Delphine Minoui Linda Coverdale, Translator. 2010.
This book is the autobiography of Nujood Ali, an illiterate Yemeni girl who received international attention for her courageous stand against barbaric social practices.
Nujood was born into a large Muslim family in Yemen. Her father practiced polygamy. Her brothers went to school. At age nine, she was taken out of school and married to a thirty-one-year old man. There is a Yemeni tribal proverb: “To guarantee a happy marriage, marry a nine-year-old girl.” Raped by her husband on the very first night, mentally and physically abused by her mother-in-law, Nujood found life a horror. After two months of this, she escaped from the in-laws’ house. Her father’s second wife advised her to seek a divorce. In Yemen, such a thing was unimaginable. She ran away with the money given to her to buy bread, and went to the court. A judge took her into his protection and ordered her husband and father to be taken into custody. The advocates in the city and the press supported her cause.
The young girl’s courage and determination became a sensation in Yemen. International media and human rights activists made her a heroine of human rights. Her case served to highlight the cause of young girls facing sexual slavery in the name of marriage. Nujood says, “I’m a simple village girl who has always obeyed the orders of my father and brothers. Since forever, I have learned to say yes to everything. Today I have decided to say no.” Shada Nasser (Nujood calls her as “second mother”), a women’s rights activist and advocate, represented her in court. Nujood became the first child bride in Yemen to win a divorce in a country where nearly half the prepubescent girls are married off to senior men. She returned to school with the dream of becoming a lawyer and helping girls in similar situations. She faced government persecution. In 2008, Glamour magazine chose her, along with Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, as Women of the Year. One result of her action: Yemen raised the minimum age of marriage from 15 to 18.
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Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace … One School at a Time.
Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. Penguin. 2006.
This memoir of Greg Mortenson, the co-founder of non-profit ‘Central Asia Institute (CAI), Pennies for Peace’ tells his experience of trying to build schools and hospitals in the remote villages of Afghanistan and Pakistan during the days of Taliban terror. The title refers to the Afghan custom of hospitality according to which the third cup of tea shared with a guest makes him almost a family member. Mortenson had such an experience when he stumbled into Korphe, after his failed attempt to climb K 2, the second tallest mountain in the world to honour his late sister Christa, who was disabled. He ended up building a school for girls in the remote Korphe, tucked away among the Karakoram Mountains. He saw children attempting to learn writing without the help of a trained teacher, writing with sticks in mud. In return for the villagers’ hospitality, he promised to build a school for them.
Mortenson saved money from his salary as a nurse. His missionary parents had built a hospital and a school in Tanzania where he and his sister grew up. His struggle to raise funds received the generous support of the wealthy physicist and mountaineer Jean Horni.
Despite the perils of traveling and living in the difficult terrain, as well as personal tragedies at home, he finished the project. His wife and friends also joined in for support.
The CAI helped to build more schools in the mountains. But the violent Taliban and some mullahs were against girls’ education. The Taliban destroyed some of these schools. Mortenson himself survived two kidnappings and two fatwas. Organisational problems also plagued him in America. The Taliban terrorist groups built madrassas in place of secular schools where they trained boys for terror. He faced opposition and hate from both sides. This book became an instant best seller and Time Magazine’s Asia Book of The Year.
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