Terrifying plight of the starving child brides: Families forced to marry off their young daughters… just so they can eat



Eaman Thabet is about to marry, but it will be no fairytale wedding.



She has no idea who her husband will be or where she will be spending the rest of her life, only that if she doesn't marry in the next few weeks she and her brothers will most likely starve.



Eaman looks far younger than her 16 years would suggest. She has not eaten a proper meal in weeks - her family is surviving on scraps. Her brothers search for work every day but there are no jobs.



Tragically she is not alone. Across poverty-stricken Yemen, desperate parents are increasingly being forced to marry their daughters off just so that they can eat.

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Terrible choice: Widower Salama Abdu Thabet says she will have to marry her 16 year old daughter, Eaman, in a few weeks time because she cannot afford to feed her large family

The country is in the grip of a hunger catastrophe with an estimated 10 million people – almost half the entire population – not having enough food to eat.

According to the latest United Nations figures some five million people require urgent humanitarian aid and almost one million children are at risk of severe malnutrition.



Eaman's mother, widower Salama Abdu Thabet, does not want to see her daughter married so young, but she feels she has no choice other than to watch her other children starve to death.



Her sons try to find work as porters in the weekly market, while she and her daughters weave baskets to sell - but it is not enough..

Crisis: Yemen is in the grip of a hunger catastrophe with almost one million children at risk of severe malnutrition

The family from the village of Quaraibah, in rural Hodeidah, on Yemen’s west coast are surviving on little more than scraps - A few pieces of bread and some tomato paste must somehow make an evening meal for seven.

The dowry money from Eaman's marriage could make the difference between life and death.



Salama said: 'I will marry my daughter because her new husband will feed and provide a home for her.



'We don’t have anything: we don’t have a proper house and we sleep on the floor. So we’ll marry her.



'We don’t have food or anything and we’re a big family with a lot of children. There are seven of us. We don’t have enough money to support everyone. I’m very sad. My daughter is so young.'



What makes the situation even harder to fathom is that fact that Yemen is not suffering from a major food shortage or famine.

There is food for sale, but spiralling prices on the global market mean people can no longer afford basics like bread.

Safia Mohammed Shoqui, 14, with her husband Moussa Ahmed, 18. Safia's father Mohammed said the family needed the dowry money for food

In Al Habeil village, Abss district, there are just two working open wells for basic water needs and families rely on rain to grow their crops. Less than 20 per cent own their own land and most are casual labourers.



Rising fuel prices, which increase the costs of irrigation and transportation, has had a huge impact on the lives of rural communities.

Tractor driver, Mohammed, married his 14 year-old daughter Safia a few months’ ago because the family needed the dowry money for food.



He said: 'Life is expensive and prices are very high; our circumstances were difficult. And because I couldn’t find any work, I had to marry my daughter. The cost of living was very high, so I married her'



Safia is remarkably understanding.



'I have 6 sisters and 3 brothers. My father couldn’t get any work so I married to help my father.,' she said.

'We had no rains here and no-one was able to get any agricultural work.'



Mothers bring their starving children to a rural hospital in Al Hodeidah governorate, Yemen. One in three children in Al Hodeidah are malnourished, double what the UN considers emergency levels

Plight: Yemen is the poorest country in the Middle East and a surge in food and fuel prices has pushed people all over the land into hunger

Yemen is wracked by conflict in its north and south. Last year’s political turmoil saw many people fall into unemployment.

According to charity Oxfam starving families are getting into debt and pulling children out of school to work.



Colette Fearon, Country Director of Oxfam in Yemen, said: 'With each passing day, the crisis gets tougher.

'Children’s futures are at risk with some of the highest rates of child malnutrition in the world. Women tell Oxfam that their lives have got worse since last year's political upheaval.



'They can’t afford food or find work. Parents are pulling children out of school to beg, marrying their daughters early and selling what little they have just to get food today.



'They know this will make life harder in the future, but have little choice. People cannot survive on promises, however generous. It would take a fraction of the money already promised to fully fund the UN appeal.'



Video: Children are assessed for malnutrition in Yemen



