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Yemeni girl viral video screen shot

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Written by Kirstin Stokes Smith | Eleven-year-old Nada al-Ahdal received YouTube fame after a video she made went viral in July.  The Yemeni girl wasn’t singing or dancing in her video, she was speaking about her experience with forced and early marriage.

Her video went viral after it was translated and posted on YouTube and it recorded over seven million views in just three days.

“Go ahead and marry me off. I’ll kill myself, just like that,” Nada says in the video message to her parents, “I’m better off dead.”

In the video Nada says that her parents tried to force her to marry an older man. Her parents disagree.

Nada’s uncle took her in after she left her mom and dad.  Some Yeminis have been critical of Nada’s actions. They say that her public criticism of her parents is defiant of Yemeni customs and traditions.

Nada’s case got the attention of the Yemeni Women’s Union, who now have her in their custody. The video sparked international discussion about the practice of early forced marriages.

There are 14 million girls married every year and according to Human Rights Watch, one in seven girls in the developing world is married before she turns 15. The youngest of these child brides are as young as eight or nine years of age.

Human Rights Watch reports that child marriages have a “profoundly detrimental impact on [children’s] physical and mental well-being, and their ability to live free of violence.” Often children in early marriages experience domestic violence and sexual assault. They also tend to get pregnant too young and are denied access to education.

Human Rights Watch advocates for children who are forced into early marriages, and they’ve outlined a number of recommendations to assist in their goal of ending the practice. One of the key requirements for the protection of children is through setting and enforcing a minimum age of 18 for marriage. Other points on their multipronged platform include:

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