By Ahmad Shihadah
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

SA’NA, Yemen – A 13-year-old Yemeni girl died three days after marrying a man twice her age, due to internal bleeding following intercourse, a Yemeni human rights group and UNICEF said.

The girl’s death comes amid ongoing debate on whether to set a minimum age for brides in Yemen, where human rights groups say one in every three girls is married before the age of 18.

Elham Mahdi Shoi died in the west of the Arab state earlier this month, said Sisters Arab Forum (SAF). “Elham is a martyr of abuse of children’s lives in Yemen and a clear example of what is justified by the lack of limits on the age of marriage,” SAF said in a statement.

A medical report by the hospital where she was treated said she had suffered a tear to her genitals and severe bleeding after intercourse, the group said. In a statement obtained by the Reuters news agency, Unicef’s regional director, Sigrid Kaag, said the UN child agency was “dismayed by the death of yet another child bride in Yemen.”

The Yemeni rights group said the girl was married off in an agreement between two men to marry each other’s sisters to avoid having to pay expensive bride-prices. The group said that was a common arrangement in the deeply impoverished country.

Yemen’s gripping poverty plays a role in hindering efforts to stamp out the practice, as poor families find themselves unable to say no to bride-prices in the hundreds of dollars for their daughters.

Human rights groups have been pressuring the authorities to outlaw family-arranged child marriages in Yemen, which has a tribal social structure.

For More Information, Please See;

BBC – Yemen Child Bride ‘Bleeds to Death’ – 8 April 2010

The Washington Post = Child Bride Dies Of Internal Bleeding In Yemen – 8 April 2010

AP – 13-Year-Old Yemeni Bride Dies Of Bleeding – 8 April 2010

The National – Dead Yemeni Bribe, 13, ‘A Victim Of Childhood Abuse’ – 8 April 2010