On July 24, 2013, the Lebanese daily Al-Safir published an article by Ghufran Mustafa about a YouTube video clip, translated and released by MEMRI TV, in which 11-year-old Nada Al-Ahdal expresses her opposition to her family's intention to marry her off at her young age. The MEMRI TV clip has now had 10 million views.
The following are excerpts from the article:
"...Nada Al-Ahdal, the young 11-year-old Yemeni girl, sits before the camera with the lens framing her face. She tells us her tale in only three minutes. In three minutes, she says a great deal. She says what the entire world must understand: 'I have no problem with dying, but I will not permit them to marry me off.'
"She was filmed for a few minutes with a cell phone camera, and the [clip] was uploaded to the Internet on July 8, 2013. The MEMRI channel on YouTube released the [clip] three days ago, and got over five million views. In recent days, Nada's story has become the talk [of the day] in the media worldwide, which dedicated many articles to the story of the brave young girl.
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"Her story is another mark of shame on the forehead of those who think that they have the right to decide the fate of young girls, claiming that that they are acting out of concern for [the girls'] future – especially in Yemen, where the practice of marrying off young girls is widespread.
"Nada's words conveyed a message of direct condemnation of this entire system. This girl is heedless of the consequences of her words, because her beautiful little face is lovelier than any deep reaction that characterizes her society.
"She spoke with more sincerity, wisdom, and maturity than the young girls of her generation who have fallen victim to petrified minds. Choosing each word carefully, she told how she had run away, and that she had decided to relinquish everything – particularly the bosom of her parents – so as not to miss out on the dreams that await her, and the [good] times she knows she will have…
"She seems glad about what she is saying, and about her decision to flee to her uncle's house. She says: 'I ran away from my family. I don't want to be with them anymore. What crime did the children commit that they marry them off like this? I managed to find a solution for my problem by running away to my uncle's house. But the innocence of some of the children prevents them from solving their [own] problems. They might die, they might commit suicide, because they are [only] children, they don't know anything, some of them didn't attend [school] and get an education.'
"The Al-Miyadeen channel presented an investigative report on the family's reunion with their daughter [Nada, after she ran away from home] and extracted a promise from her father that he would not marry her off until she reaches legal age [in Yemen, 15]. But what can promise this girl, and those like her, that there will not be times of poverty and deprivation in the family, when the [families] will place the girls in the home of a 'groom' whom they think will save them from poverty?
"The problem is never poverty, or insecurity; it is the mentality that refuses to comprehend what it means when a man is alone with a young girl who is unfamiliar with her own body, and doesn't even know that [this body] has such desires...
"Nada is one of a few girls who are a conscience for their societies – societies that must be reminded every day that [every] person is born with an [inalienable] right [to freedom] that none may fetter for any reason whatsoever. Nada concluded with words that reverberate throughout her country, [to its most] distant villages: 'I'm better off dead. You want to marry me off? I'll kill myself, just like that. I won't live with them. This [forced marriage] is no upbringing. This is criminal, simply criminal.'"
