I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced

This chapter is devoted to Nujood’s sudden marriage and the torment she suffers at the hands of her husband and mother-in-law. Nujood places her marriage in the context of her family’s poverty. She is initially somewhat relieved at the prospect of leaving her stressful home environment. Her father has failed to secure a job and continues to chew the khat regularly. The family has little money, and they are regularly late with rent. Her mother begins to lease her oven on the black market and to sell their things until “came the day when there wasn’t much left to sell” (52). She and her siblings work as street vendors and beggars. It is amid this poverty that her father is approached by her future husband, Faez Ali Thamer, a 30-year-old deliveryman from their home village of Khardji. He agrees to his proposal immediately.

The reactions among her family vary, but her father resolves to see the marriage through, partially because it would lessen his financial burden and provide him with money in the form of Nujood’s bride-price. Her sister Mona insists that Nujood is too young to be married.