Nujood Ali

Nujood Ali was just ten-years-old when she learned that she would soon be getting married. Nujood was an active and happy child despite her family's poverty. She loved to run in the rain and collect hailstones and count them. She has just learned to count to one hundred. She also loved to draw pictures with her colored pencils. She had a best friend at school and had dreams about the future. She and her sisters would window shop in the Old City and imagine wearing beautiful gowns, even the lovely white wedding gown that was displayed in the front window.

But, marriage turned out to be a completely different thing for Nujood. She knew that her sisters and mother and other relatives married young; but, she never imagined that she would join the adult world of married people as a child, a ten-year-old child. Her “husband...