A Promise To Nadia

Travel Guide

Birmingham to Yemen could not be more different. But when you’re of Yemeni  heritage, it’s only natural that a holiday there will be interesting and an insight into where your family comes from and to understand your own culture.

Birmingham

But these are Birmingham girls. They work in the family shop and cafe, fight with one another but love each other deeply. Nadia is the tom boy whilst Zana is the more ladylike but they know that their father minds when they speak to a man of any kind, questioning them and warning them not to. He is moody and they soon learn to sneak out so they are able to do what their friends are doing. The fact that he follows them at times was particularly unsettling.

Yemen

But the reality of two girls is heartbreaking to read about for ‘their country’ is nothing more than a prison –

“I felt glad when I thought about dying as that would be a way out of the Yemen”

How a man can sell his daughters to men under any circumstances is unbelievable to most people. Ruled by their husbands, treated like slaves and having to survive in the most remote and mountainous places, they really are left to their own devices and survival and then escape is on their minds.

An insight into the custom of Yemeni child marriages and why this still happens in the modern age.