Earlier this week, 17-year-old Egyptian bride who reportedly escaped from her 37-year-old Saudi husband on the first day after their wedding surrendered herself to the police and returned to her husband. The girl was reported missing on 21 August 2018 by her husband who thought that the girl’s father tricked him and stole his money. The Saudi Arabian groom reportedly paid EGP 125,000 as a form of dowry and filed a complaint against the father upon the bride’s disappearance. However, the father was allegedly unaware of his daughter’s whereabouts. Because the legal age for marriage in Egypt is 18 years old, according to the 2008 amendment of Egypt’s Child Law, this ‘marriage’ was likely conducted under the “urfi” contract, an unregistered marriage document that pardons the groom from financial obligations and reserves no rights for the second party. Although child marriage is illegal in Egypt, neither the groom nor the father suffered any consequences for colluding in this crime. Instead, once the bride returned, the husband dropped all charges against her and her father. However, it remains unclear on what grounds, given the illegality of child marriage, the Saudi groom…
Another Egyptian Girl’s Childhood Becomes Victim to Child Marriage
August 25, 2018
