Activists Want to Stop Child Marriages in Saudi Arabia

For example, a father can marry off a 1-year-old girl as long as sex is delayed until she reaches puberty, said one marriage official, Ahmad al-Muabi Where would the Saudis get such an idea?Fox News

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — An 11-year-old boy gave out invitations to his classmates for a big event his family was planning this summer — and it wasn't his birthday party.

It was his wedding to a 10-year-old cousin.

Muhammad al-Rashidi's marriage was eventually put on hold, his father said, after pressure from the governor of the northern province of Hail, who considered the elementary school student too young to marry.

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Saudi Arabia is already rocked by a high divorce rate that has jumped from 25 percent to 60 percent over the past 20 years, according to Noura al-Shamlan, head of the research department at the Center of University Studies for Girls.

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But there are other marriages involving children that have gone ahead.

One involved a 15-year-old girl whose father, Muhammad Ali al-Zahrani, a death-row inmate, married her off to a cell mate who also was sentenced to death. The father's sentence was carried out July 21, when he was beheaded for killing another man.

Pictures of the wedding, held in the prison in Taif for the men, appeared in several newspapers. Media reports said inmates recited poems and delivered speeches in the presence of prison officials. The teenage bride and other women, as is the custom here, held a separate reception outside the jail.

The groom, Awad al-Harbi, and his bride were allowed to spend two nights together in a special prison quarters after the wedding, according to Al-Watan. Al-Harbi told another newspaper, Al-Madina, recently that his wife was pregnant.

There are no laws in Saudi Arabia defining the minimum age for marriage. Though a woman's consent is legally required, some marriage officials do not seek it. For example, a father can marry off a 1-year-old girl as long as sex is delayed until she reaches puberty, said one marriage official, Ahmad al-Muabi.