Yemeni families forced to marry off children for food

By Mohamed al-Samei

SANAA (AA) - A Yemeni family has been forced to marry off their daughters to buy food and shelter in war-devastated country, an international aid NGO said on Tuesday.

"Yemeni crisis forces families to take desperate measures to survive," Oxfam said in a statement.

The NGO "spoke to families in Amran governorate in the North who, hungry and isolated after fleeing their homes, have been forced to marry off their daughters – in one case as young as three years old – to buy food and shelter to save the rest of the family."

"Although early marriage has long been a practice in Yemen, marrying off girls at such an early age in desperation to buy food is shocking," the statement read.

For his part, Muhsin Siddiquey, Oxfam's head for Yemen, said: “As this war has gone on, people’s means of coping with devastating levels of hunger have become more and more desperate."

"They’re being forced to take steps that blight their children’s lives now and for decades to come," he said. "This is a direct result of a man-made humanitarian catastrophe caused by the conflict."

Siddiquey called on the international community to ensure civilians in Yemen have their basic life needs and end the conflict.

Yemen has been beset by violence and chaos since 2014, when Houthi rebels overran much of the country, including Sanaa. The crisis escalated in 2015 when a Saudi-led military coalition launched a devastating air campaign aimed at rolling back Houthi territorial gains.

Since then, tens of thousands of Yemenis, including numerous civilians, are believed to have been killed in the conflict, while another 14 million are now at risk of starvation, according to the UN.