Approximately 130 Yemeni women have been killed in 2,694 incidences of violence and sexual assaults on females in 2007, an government report has revealed.
A further 970 women, including 345 under 18 years of age, were injured as a result of those attacks, said a Ministry of Interior report, UAE daily Gulf News reported on Wednesday.
The report, prepared by the Centre for Studies and Researches of Gender at Sana’a University, studied the incidences and causes of violence against women. The research attributed the main cause of violence against women to the tradition of early marriage, adding that Yemen was yet to criminalise the act of child marriages.
The report also cited poverty, illiteracy and age-old barbaric customs as some other reasons behind the violence.
Among total marriages held in 2006 and 2007, about 52% of Yemeni girls and about 7% of boys were under the age of 15, the report said. Around 70% of the child marriages have occurred in rural areas where about 75% of the 22 million population of Yemen reside.
The university report also revealed that the age gap between the wife and the husband was very big in those marriages. In many cases the age of the husband was about 50 years more than the wife, Gulf News reported.
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