Nujood Ali At The Glamour Women Of The Year Awards

You may recall the story of Nujood Mohammed Ali. If not, here's the video:




From this source, with an illustration showing Nujood and human rights lawyer Shada Nasser:

The most talked about honoree of the 2008 Glamour Women of the Year awards was a small child of 10. Nujood Ali, who flew all the way from her native Yemen for the ritzy Carnegie Hall gala, was married off by impoverished parents to a 30-year-old man who raped and abused her.

Her father, who drew an annual salary equivalent to $900, had 18 children and couldn't afford to clothe and feed Ali so he gave her up for marriage. Though her older husband promised to wait years before becoming intimate with his child bride, he beat her and raped her on their wedding night. Ali had enough.
Taking a solo trip to a Yemen courthouse, she sat until a judge took notice and heard her pleas for help. After the lawyer linked her up with a human rights lawyer named Shada Nasser, the brave girl became the country's first child bride to legally end her marriage with a divorce.

"I didn't like my husband so my stepmother told me if I wasn't happy, I should go to court," Ali told The Daily News through a translator. "But no one was willing to take me. So I went on my own."

Praise for the pint-sized hero was flowing from some of the biggest names at Monday night's ceremony....

Read the rest. Other award recipients, including Condoleeza Rice and Hillary Clinton, had words of praise for Nujood.

Glamour Magazine ran a detailed story about Nujood. Of course, not a single word of criticism about Islam itself appeared. Problems with the laws in Yemen and poverty are mentioned, and a brief allusion to honor killings also appears. The word "shari'a" never appears. Instead, we read the following:

So what can American women do to help child brides? Most advocates say that schools are crucial—that educating girls is the best way to change the culture. “When you promote education, you create new roles for women,” says Gabool al-Mutawakel, general manager of the Girls World Communication Center (GWCC) in Sana’a, which offers courses in English, computers and family planning to impoverished girls. In honor of Nujood and Nasser, Glamour has chosen the GWCC to be the recipient of money raised through the 2008 Glamour Women of the Year Fund initiative; donations that readers make will help child brides and girls at risk of early marriage finish school. “Yemeni people are receptive to educated women in the workforce,” al-Mutawakel says. “When a woman can contribute, they’re encouraging.”

Education is, of course, a wonderful step to promote. But how far will such a step go to breaking the chains of shari'a law? All the recognition for Nujood, much of that recognition noticeably smacking of multiculturalism, doesn't address the root of the problem that Nujood faced as well as the future problems she'll have to deal with in a misogynistic, male-centric culture.

At best, the story of Nujood at Glamour's Women of the Year Awards is a feel-good story. It did, however, get a brief mention in today's Washington Post's "Style" section.