12 YEAR OLD ARABIAN GIRL TO DIVORCE 80 YEAR OLD HUSBAND

A 12 year old Saudi Arabian girl was forced to marry her fathers cousin - an 80 year old man against her will.

The girls mother was also against the idea, but the marriage still went ahead with an exchange of money and then disturbingly was consummated.

Sadly at this time Saudi Arabia have no minimum legal age limit for marriage, so in the poorer and tribal areas girls are matched and married off at a young age.

The 12 year old wishes to divorce her husband, which is quite unusual for someone to stand up against their peers in this culture. At first her mother had tried to file for divorce but then changed her mind.

In the meantime the girl will receive legal assistance from the government in a test case, that will hopefully lead to child marriage being banned altogether. It is the first time that the Human Rights Commission has been able to intervene in cases like this.

The case will go to court, and if divorce is not granted by the judge an appeal will be put into action.

It will be interesting to see the way the judge goes, as many judges and clerics of Saudi Arabia believe in the religious aspect of this, seeing as the Prophet Muhammad's marriage was to a 9 year old girl.

But that was 14 centuries ago, and cleric Sheikh Abdullah al-Manie says 'It should not be used to justify child marriages today'

There seems to be alot of religious practices around the world that bring misery to alot of people involved.

I hope this girl gets her divorce, and new laws can be put into place to protect people from certain religious beliefs in the future.