Amal, whose name means hope in Arabic, has been hoping that the judge will issue a verdict to divorce her from her husband who is 50 years older than her. Amal is 10 years old. Although Amal lives in a fancy home and rides posh cars and is served by housemaids, she has never felt comfortable and content. She decided to go to court upon her friend's advice. Amal is not the only young girl who is married off to the first rich man who comes along. There are hundreds of Amals in society who get married at a very young age to rich men, 30 and 40 years older than them. After all, courts here look into a divorce case of this kind almost every day. Underage marriage has become an emotive subject amongst the public, according to Dr. Hani Al-Ghamdi, a family counsellor. “Some parents marry off their daughters at a young age because they believe that by doing so they are guaranteeing a good future for them.” Iman Al-Aqeel, editor-in-chief of Hayat Magazine, said most underage girls who get married are victims of their own families. In most cases, the girl's guardian marries her to a rich man because the guardian looks for money. These marriages collapse quickly because husbands and wives have different cultural and economic levels, let alone the big difference in intellectual age. “Many countries around the world have set 18 years as the age for marriage,” said Dr. Abu Bakr Baqadir, sociology professor at King Abdul Aziz University. With marriage comes different responsibilities; the girl has to be mature enough to deal with and shoulder these responsibilities, he explained. A minor girl cannot do that, she needs to grow up and become an adult before she is considered capable. “We have in our society many wives who got married at a very early age and today they have many problems because of this. Some of them got divorced because they could not handle the pressure of their new life.” Dr. Salih Al-Sadlan, professor of comparative Islamic jurisprudence at Imam Muhammad Bin Saud Islamic University, said the Shariah mandates that a girl should not get married unless she has become an adult. An underage girl cannot understand the psychological and emotional needs of marriage. Some girls might think about committing suicide because they cannot deal with their new life. Yet, some of them become introverted and eventually suffer from depression and lose all their self-confidence. Sheikh Abdullah Al-Manee, adviser to the Royal Bureau and member of Senior Board of Ulema, called upon parents to fear Allah the Almighty and not marry their daughters when they are so young. Marriage is a big responsibility and it is wrong to make a kid shoulder this huge burden, he explained. “Girls should only be married when they become mature adults.” Dr. Hotton Al-Fasi, professor of women's history at King Saud University in Riyadh, considers underage marriage a major human right violation because most girls are married off to men 20 and 30 years older than them. She called for banning such marriages and setting a minimum age for both girls and boys. Turki Al-Sudairi, chairman of Human Rights Commission, said these underage marriages are a flagrant violation of human rights covenants the Kingdom is a signatory to. He called upon concerned authorities to raise the public awareness of the negative effects of underage marriages, especially for girls. “The woman has the right to accept or reject a marriage. Her consent is emphasized in the Shariah. It's important that a woman should be an adult mature enough to make an informed decision. How can we expect a girl in the fourth grade, who doesn't know anything about life, to say whether she wants to get married or not?” __
