I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced

The drug khat, or more specifically, the khat leaves which are chewed to induce euphoria and erase hunger and fatigue, appears throughout the work. Nujood sometimes perceives it more generally as a Yemeni crop and a widespread social ritual and sometimes more specifically, as her father’s crutch. In both cases, khat symbolizes poverty and the problematic economic situation in Yemen.

Despite the fact that khat has been classified as a drug of abuse by the World Health Organization and outlawed in many countries, it remains legal in Yemen. It is the country’s main agricultural crop and contributes to the alarming water shortage in the country. In one case, a driver refers to it as Yemen’s “national tragedy” (69). Nevertheless, it is a widespread social ritual and a lucrative business. When it comes to men like Ali Mohammad, Nujood’s father, it seems to provide both an escape from his poverty and unemployment and a contributor to this poverty. Nujood notes that he begins to become dependent on it after her brother Fares leaves and after he loses his job. It is likely under the influence of khat that Ali Mohammad makes the decision to marry Nujood off, a decision he bases at least partially on seeking to better his financial situation. According to Nujood, khat also went hand in hand with his decision to send her and her siblings out on the street to work and beg. 

Throughout the book, education is symbolic of hope. Minoui begins the work by explaining that youth in Yemen often lack access to education and are forced into work on the streets, begging, or early marriage in order to deal with poverty. This is clearly depicted in the stories of Nujood and her siblings. Nujood is enamored with school and sees it as “[her] refuge, a happiness all of [her] own” (58), but she is forced to leave school at the age of 10 when she is married. Throughout the work, she laments the fact that she is barely literate and was forced to end her education so early. After she is granted her divorce, she is so overjoyed to return to school that dreams about school overtake her regular nightmares about her marriage. Nujood comes to associate school with hope for her future as a lawyer. She realizes that this goes beyond her when she states that if education in Yemen was compulsory, children such as her siblings would not have to beg on the streets. Minoui reinforces this in her Epilogue, writing that education can help solve child marriages and child trafficking. 

There are numerous cases of sexual assault referenced directly and hinted at throughout the work, but the sexual assaults faced by Mona and Nujood are the most prominent. They represent how women are often perceived as pawns in the patriarchal game of honor among rural Yemeni society and subject to horrific physical violence. After Mona is sexually assaulted, her father chooses to marry her to her rapist in order to preserve the family honor. He also chooses to challenge his fellow villagers for plotting against him in order to both assert and defend his honor. After Nujood tells her father about the sexual assault and domestic violence in her own marriage and seeks to divorce her husband, her father rejects on the basis of honor. Because he contracted the marriage upon his honor, breaking it would be a violation of the honor code among the males who participated. Violating this is seen as more serious than the sexual assault and beatings to which Nujood is regularly subjected.

Throughout the work, veils represent the many types of women that Nujood faces in her life and her own future. Nujood comes to associate the niqab with the women in her life who have either resigned to their prescribed societal and gender roles or have only challenged them in small ways. Her mother provides her with a niqab and tells her to wear it after her marriage in order to preserve the honor of her husband. Mona wears a niqab, and on one instance, Nujood wishes that she would take it off so that she could see her face. Towards the end of the work, Nujood states that she will not wear a niqab in her future as a lawyer, especially because you cannot breathe under it. Nevertheless, she points out professional women who challenge societal and gender roles, such as her school principal and journalists at the Yemen Times, who do wear a niqab.

Nujood pays particular attention to the fact that her lawyer and surrogate mom, Shada, chooses not to cover her face and wears veils of many colors. Along with this, she also wears make-up and heels. Nujood also notices that various journalists at the Yemen Times as well as the women she sees in modern restaurants paint their nails and wear a variety of head scarves suited to modern fashions. She is also fascinated by what women look like without their veils. Just as she admires and wants to emulate Shada, she views these women and their clothing choices as potential options for her. She will one day decide whether to don the more traditional niqab or whether to opt for the more modern head scarves.