Dubai: Two little girls aged eight and nine celebrated last year a Sana’a court ruling that allowed them to annul their marriages.

A third young girl in the second grade was about to marry a man in his thirties when the civil society groups intervened and stopped the wedding a few months ago in the southern part of the country. Unconfirmed reports said an 8-year-old Yemen girl died after being married to a man in his forties.

Child marriages are rampant in Yemen. A study revealed that the bridal age in more than half of the finalised marriages in Yemen was under the age of 15. According to the study conducted by Sana’a University, only 7 per cent of “husbands” were under the age of 18.

It also added that nearlypeople in their rejection to child brides.

“Until now there is no social opposition, because of the massive damage endured in the past few years on different levels, including social and economic,” said Youssef Abdou, a consultant with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Yemen.

He described numbers of child marriages as “scary” figures, and said they led to a decline in the health indicators of mothers and children in the country, one of the most improvised countries in the world.

With an infant death rate of 51 deaths in early 1,000 live births and a maternal death risk of 200 deaths in every 100,000 live births, infant mortality and maternal mortality rates are high in Yemen.

Abdou noted that child marriages is also related to high illiteracy rates in Yemen and