A 90-year-old Saudi man's marriage to a 15-year-old girl in exchange for a fat dowry has sparked widespread condemnation from human rights and social media activists in the kingdom
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The frightened girl locked out her husband refusing him entry to the bedroom for two successive days before fleeing back to her parents' home, the Al-Arabia reported.u00a0
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But the groom insisted that his marriage was "legal and correct", and that he paid USD 17,500 dowry to marry the girl, who is the daughter of a Yemeni father and Saudi mother.u00a0
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He vowed to sue his in-laws to give him back the girl or return him the expensive dowry.u00a0
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The travails of the girl evoked widespread condemnation from the people, who used Twitter to criticise the parents of the girl for giving her out to a man decades older than her. Suhaila Zein el-Abedin, a member of the Saudi National Association for Human Rights, urged authorities to intervene "as soon as possible to save this child from tragedy."u00a0
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El-Abedin noted that marriage in Islam must be based on mutual consent and this was not satisfied as demonstrated by the girl's move to lock herself up in the room.u00a0
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She said the girl's parents were also to be held responsible for marrying their daughter to a man of the age of her grand grandfather. On twitter, Mouhammad Khaled Alnuzha ?@mkalnuzha, a legal expert asks Is this a case of human trafficking crimes punishable by law?u00a0
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Nawal Saad @lhnalkhlwd wrote on his account: "When people of reason and wisdom are asked to be silent and the ludicrous are set loose, we will see these anti-human behaviors."
