11 Years Old Yemeni Girl Nada, Wants Education, Not Marriage

By Mohammed Jamjoom and Hakim Almasmari, CNN - Wed July 31, 2013

Sanaa, Yemen (CNN) -- A young Yemeni girl stares defiantly into the camera. Her question is a shocking one, coming from an 11-year-old:

"Would it make you happy to marry me off?" asks Nada Al-Ahdal.

In the nearly two-and-a-half-minute video, which was uploaded to YouTube and quickly went viral, Nada accuses her parents of trying to get her married off in exchange for money. She explains how she doesn't want to be one of Yemen's child brides.

"Death would be a better option for me," she declares.

Nada also speaks on behalf of other Yemeni girls: "What about the innocence of childhood? What have the children done wrong so that you would marry them off like that?"

The video, which been seen by millions of people around the world, has put a spotlight once more on Yemen's child marriages.

It has also made Nada an online sensation, although questions have been raised: Did her story add up? Was she really being pressured to get married?

Nada's parents have repeatedly stressed they have no intention to marry her off. And Seyaj, Yemen's leading child-rights organization, said they believed portions of Nada's story were fabricated.

Child brides: No sanctuary for Syria's female refugees

Yemen's history with child marriage

In deeply tribal Yemen, the issue of child marriage is extremely complicated.

In 2008, 10-year-old Nujood Ali shocked the world when she went to a court in Sanaa and asked a judge for a divorce.

After a highly publicized trial, she was granted one. She became a heroine to those trying to raise awareness about Yemen, where more than half of all young girls are married before age 18, according to Human Rights Watch.

In 2009, Yemen's parliament passed legislation raising the minimum age of marriage to 17. But conservative parliamentarians argued the bill violated Islamic law, which does not stipulate a minimum age of marriage, and the bill was never signed. Activist groups and politicians are still trying change the law, but more than 100 leading religious clerics have said restricting the age of marriage is "un-Islamic."

"The consequences of child marriage are devastating and long-lasting -- girls are removed from school, their education permanently disrupted, and many suffer chronic health problems as a result of having too many children too soon," said Liesl Gerntholtz, director of the Women's Rights Division at Human Rights Watch. "It is critical that Yemen takes immediate and concrete steps to protect girls from these abuses, including setting a minimum age of marriage."

Yemeni journalist Hind Aleryani, who interviewed Nada after the release of her video, says child marriage is a terrible problem in Yemen.

"It's common more in the poorer communities," Aleryani said. "There is a proverb, a Yemeni saying: 'Marry an 8-year-old girl, she's guaranteed,' which means the 8-year-old girl is surely a virgin. It's a disgusting saying and inhumane, but it's said by everyone and it's very well-known."

Aleryani adds, however, that there's reason for hope -- explaining how the fact there's been such a huge reaction to Nada's video proves attitudes are beginning to shift there.

"Things changed a lot after the revolution, and now people are more aware of the problem," she said. "Before we used to feel like there's no hope -- you can't do anything about it. Those conservative parties used to be stronger than us, but lately they are not."

Child bride turned scholar: Education is the road out of poverty

Talking to Nada

CNN found Nada a few weeks after the video's release, and she was living with her uncle in Sanaa.

She said it wasn't just her immediate family that she ran away from in her hometown of Hodeida.

"I ran away from marriage," she said. "I ran away from ignorance. I ran away from being bought and sold."

Seeming relaxed and happy, Nada showed off Facebook pages featuring her singing, and she talked about the singing group she's a part of -- an unusual sight in conservative, rural Yemen.

She said she asked a friend to make the YouTube video so she could tell the world how tough it is for girls there.

"I'd rather commit suicide than get engaged," she said.

Days later, Yemen's interior ministry, acting with Seyaj, took Nada from her uncle and placed her in a women's shelter. Ramzia Al-Eryani, one of Yemen's leading women's rights activists and president of the Yemen Women's Union, was appointed Nada's temporary legal guardian until the dispute could be settled.

Married at 13 to a man in his 70s

The drama came to a head this past weekend, and CNN gained exclusive access as the parties came face to face.

Before Nada entered the room, Al-Eryani spoke with both of Nada's parents and her uncle.

"If you love her, save her childhood. ... You all are adults -- you all know what's best for her -- but we need to protect this child," Al-Eryani said.

Nada entered the room a short time later. Facing her parents, she answered allegations that her story may have been made up.

At one point, she asked Al-Eryani, "Why do you believe them and don't believe me?" before breaking down in tears.

"I don't care about what's best for the mom or dad or uncle," Al-Eryani explained later, "just what's best for the girl."

Where the truth lies has been hard to determine.

In an extraordinary moment during the proceedings, Nada asked for something few in the room were expecting.

"In the countryside, there's no English classes, there's no computer classes," she said, talking about her hometown. "Please let me stay in Sanaa and study here."

All she wants, apparently, is a chance at a better life.

And she might get it: At the end of session, they made an agreement: The entire family -- parents and uncle included, are going to move into the house of another relative in Sanaa, to see if they can work it all out together.

The Dimming Geo Engineering Watch

Published: September 30, 2022

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Geo Engineering - LIVE Updated Presentation - The Most Important Topic of Our Time

- By Dane Wigington - Published on June 20, 2013

In this video, Dane Wigington gives a presentation in Northern California on the harmful effects of Geo-engineering, declaring that there is no more critical topic today. The very essentials needed to sustain life on earth are being recklessly destroyed by these programs. This is not a topic that will begin to affect us in several years, but is now already causing massive animal and plant die off around the world, as well as human illness.

The debate over weather geo-engineering programs are going on is now a moot point. We have more than enough data to confirm it. We have actual footage showing tankers spraying. The materials showing up on the ground are exactly the same materials mentioned in the numerous geo-engineering patents and documents. Visit our website for a list of these government patents and documents.

Our skies today are simply not normal. Upon examination this cannot be denied. They are filled with nanoparticulates of heavy metals. But the skies have been filled with grid patterns for so long now that we are used to them and do not see them anymore. Sadly, the fact is that people do not look up.

To be clear, what we are seeing is not cloud seeding to increase rainfall. These particulates are designed to block the sun and move the jet stream. Dane explains how this is causing the drought and deluge being experienced around the globe.

Our atmosphere is nothing but a massive physics lab to geo-engineering scientists who have no concern whatsoever about the consequences to humanity or any living thing, including themselves. The experiments are literally tearing the planet apart and destroying life on earth.

Dane reports, among other things, on:

• Geo-engineering related climate disruptions, extreme drought and deluge
• Ozone depletion
• Methane release
• Drastic reduction in arctic sea ice
• Global oxygen content reductions
• Oceans on the brink of collapse
• Massive fish die offs
• 200 species becoming extinct every single day
• A drastic rise in Autism, Alzheimer's, and Dementia
• Crisis level forest reductions
• The sterilization of soils making it impossible for plants to grow without Monsanto's aluminum resistant seeds

Dane Wigington presents hard data which reveals what these catastrophic programs have done to our planet to date and what they will do if they are allowed to continue. Please take the time to watch this video, follow up with some investigation of your own on our site and share this information far and wide.

Thank you, http://GeoEngineeringWatch.org Staff

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Kristen Meghan Is a Former Air Force Pilot Turned Chemtrail, Geoengineering Whistleblower. (Full Interview)

Kristen Gave a Ground Breaking Presentation of What She Had Discovered About Geoengineering, Chemtrails While Serving Her Country. This Brave Young Lady Has Put Her Livelihood and Life on The Line for Us. - Watch And Listen to Her Incredible Insider Story

Counterfeit Food Found To Be Far More Widespread Than Suspected

- By STEPHEN CASTLE and DOREEN CARVAJAL - June 26, 2013 - The New York Times

GREAT DALBY, England — Invisible from the roadway, hidden deep in the lush English countryside, Moscow Farm is an unlikely base for an international organized crime gang churning out a dangerous brew of fake vodka.

But a quarter of a mile off a one-lane road here, tens of thousands of liters of counterfeit spirits were distilled, pumped into genuine vodka bottles, with near-perfect counterfeit labels and duty stamps, and sold in corner shops across Britain. The fake Glen’s vodka looked real. But analysis revealed that it was spiked with bleach to lighten its color, and contained high levels of methanol, which in large doses can cause blindness.

No one knows the harm done to those who drank it — or whether they connected any illness with their bargain vodka — but cases of poisoning have been reported throughout Europe, including in the Czech Republic, where more than 20 people died last year after drinking counterfeit liquor.

The Europe-wide scandal surrounding the substitution of cheaper horse meat in what had been labeled beef products caught the most attention from consumers, regulators and investigators this year. But in terms of food fraud, regulators and investigators say, that is just a hint of what has been happening as the economic crisis persists.

Investigators have uncovered thousands of frauds, raising fresh questions about regulatory oversight as criminals offer bargain-hunting shoppers cheap versions of everyday products, including counterfeit chocolate and adulterated olive oil, Jacob’s Creek wine and even Bollinger Champagne. As the horse meat scandal showed, even legitimate companies can be overtaken by the murky world of food fraud.

“Around the world, food fraud is an epidemic — in every single country where food is produced or grown, food fraud is occurring,” said Mitchell Weinberg, president and chief executive of Inscatech, a company that advises on food security. “Just about every single ingredient that has even a moderate economic value is potentially vulnerable to fraud.”

Speaking at a recent conference organized by the consulting firm FoodChain Europe, Mr. Weinberg added that many processed products contain ingredients like sugar, vanilla, paprika, honey, olive oil or cocoa products that are tainted.

Increasingly, those frauds are the work of organized international criminal networks lured by the potential for big profits in an illicit trade in which most forgers are never caught. The vodka gang boss, Kevin Eddishaw, was — but not before he had counterfeited liquor on an industrial scale, generating profits to match, according to investigators, who estimated that his distillery produced at least 165,000 bottles costing the British government £1.5 million, or $2.3 million, in lost tax revenue.

“He was living a very nice lifestyle,” said Roddy Mackinnon, criminal investigation officer for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, “a couple of properties, nice cars: a Range Rover, a Mercedes.”

Here at Moscow Farm, the gang used the production techniques of a modern-day factory equipped with at least £50,000, or $77,200, in equipment (while ignoring safety rules). Gang members bought bottles from the supplier of the real makers of Glen’s vodka, saying they were destined for Poland. When forged label prototypes printed in Britain were deemed unpersuasive, higher-quality ones were brought from Poland. The gang faked duty stamps on boxes.

“They tried to do as much as they could to replicate the real thing,” Mr. Mackinnon said. “They were very professional, there was attention to detail.”

So well was the secret plant hidden that it was detected only when someone suspected in another case led investigators there in 2009.

Though Mr. Eddishaw worked through intermediaries and used pay-as-you-go cellphone numbers, investigators tracked his calls, proving from the location where they were made that the phone belonged to him and linking him to a fraud that brought him a seven-year prison term.

The plot fits a pattern, identified by Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, which says organized crime groups have capitalized on the economic downturn.

“In response to reduced consumer spending power, counterfeiters have expanded their range of products,” a recent Europol report said. In addition to the traditional counterfeit luxury product, organized crime groups “now also counterfeit daily consumer goods such as detergents, foodstuffs, cosmetic products and pharmaceuticals.”

Shaun Kennedy, associate professor at the University of Minnesota, estimated that 10 percent of food that consumers buy in the developed world was adulterated. Because the profit margins for foodstuffs are often within single digits, “if you dilute by 2 percent, that’s a big deal.” He cited a report from the United States’ Grocery Manufacturers Association saying that economic adulteration and counterfeiting of global food and consumer products was expected to cost the industry $10 billion to $15 billion a year.

“Mostly the perpetrators are not intending to cause anyone harm — that would be bad for repeat business — but often they don’t understand the potential impact,” Mr. Kennedy added.

Investigators say a huge array of deceptions exist. Simple ones involve presenting cheap products as branded or top-quality ones, like selling catfish as sea bream, labeling farmed salmon as wild or marketing battery-produced eggs as organic or free range. In February, the German authorities began investigating around 160 farms suspected of breaking rules on organic and free-range egg production, for example.

In other cases, cheaper ingredients are added to genuine products to increase profit margins. Sometimes vegetable oil goes into chocolate bars, or pomegranate juice, wine, coffee, honey or olive oil is adulterated with water, sweeteners or cheaper substitutes.

Whenever there is tampering, there are potential risks to health. Indian restaurants in Britain have been prosecuted for adding ground peanuts to almond powder, which poses a risk to allergy sufferers. Food experts say that engine oil is among the substances found in olive oil.

In a weeklong food fraud crackdown last year, the French authorities seized 100 tons of fish, seafood and frogs legs whose origin was incorrectly labeled; 1.2 tons of fake truffle shavings; 500 kilograms, or 1,100 pounds, of inedible pastries; false Parmesan cheese from America and Egypt; and liquor from a Dutch company marketed as tequila. They also found fraudulent Web sites claiming to sell caviar.

Illegally fished and contaminated shellfish often finds its way to fish markets. And even the fish that is safe to eat may not be what consumers think it is; the owner of a fish and chip shop in Plymouth, England, was fined last year for selling a cheaper Asian river fish called panga as cod.

Another fraud is to fake the packaging of well-known brands with writing in a foreign language so consumers believe they have a genuine product that was diverted abroad at a bargain price.

Even religious communities are not immune. In Britain, the Food Standards Agency has warned against drinking Zam Zam water, which is sacred to Muslims and comes from Saudi Arabia. Bottles sold in Britain “may contain high levels of arsenic or nitrates,” the agency said.

In a depot in South London, trading standards officers display fake foods including about 300 bottles of counterfeit red and white wine, labeled Jacob’s Creek. One small detail gives away these otherwise convincing forgeries: the counterfeiters misspelled the name of the country where the real wine is produced — Australia — missing its middle “a.”

Russell Bignell, trading standards officer at Wandsworth Council, said bottles normally contained cheaper wine but added, “the fact is we don’t know what’s in it.”

Other items here include two boxes of fake Durex condoms, in convincing packaging, and a bottle of counterfeit Bollinger Champagne.

Christopher Roe, the council’s chief trading standards officer, said that the problem affects sales of goods online but that much conventionally sold counterfeit produce turns up in markets or small independent corner stores.

“Whether or not they know it’s counterfeit is a moot point,” Mr. Roe said, adding that there are just not enough resources to combat the problem. With counterfeit products, he added, “the more you look, the more you know you will find.”