Between a Teenager and an Old Man

A Forced Marriage

Saudi Arabia -  The chief judge of the Qatif Shari`ah Court, Sa`id  Madlouh, ‎nullified 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. 

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 Shari`ah ‎law. ‎