As the controversy is growing around Rawan's alleged death following her alleged marriage to a 40-year old man, Yemen Human Rights Minister, Hooria Mashour has promised she would sponsor a bill to introduce a legal minimum age on marriage. The minister wants to impose a age-ban on marriage at 17, thus criminalizing child marriage once and for all.
Child marriage has always been a very controversial issue in Yemen as it directly touches to religious matters and the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. Clerics across the Islamic world, not only in Yemen have long argued that since the Quran never defined a clear age limit on marriages, only provisioning for the bride to express enlightened consent, the state should not interfere by legislating Islam.
Now, the new media frenzy around Rawan, the intervention of the EU and calls for an immediate state intervention have forced Minister Mashour to position herself on the matter. A long-standing defender of children' rights, the minister has now promised she would champion a change in legislature and end decades of controversy.
"I wrote to the president of the chamber of deputies to re-file on the parliamentary agenda the bill limiting the age of marriage to 17 years, which has been suspended since 2009," she told AFP.
It is important to note that while many media outlets have chosen to take Mohammad Radman's tale at face value, there are yet no proof that Rawan actually did die and did marry. Radman is a Yemeni journalist.
Hajja Governor, Ali al-Khaisy has already rejected the claims in block, declaring he had himself investigated the matter and established that the young school-girl was still living under her father's care and that no plan to marry her off had ever been planned.
The insistence of unscrupulous media outlets to sensationalize Radman's allegations should not be confused with the truth.
Even MinisterMahsour insisted, "We do not have enough evidence at the moment" about the incident."