How teenage Saudi 'runaway' bride won her freedom

A teenage Saudi girl, who was forced to marry a 90-year-old man, has been granted a divorce after a local human rights group intervened, a report has said.

The elderly Saudi threatened to sue the family of his 15-year-old runaway child bride, asking them to return either the girl or the money he paid them to marry her.

The man said that he had paid the girl's parents a $17,500 dowry, which made the marriage "legal and correct".

Al-Hayat daily had reported that the teenager locked herself inside the bedroom on her wedding night before fleeing the man's home and returning to her parents.

The Saudi Human Rights Commission raised the case 'after learning of the marriage of the minor girl' in southeast Saudi Arabia, the group's head, Bandar al-Ayban, said in a statement, the Age reports.

The commission had provided "legal assistance to the girl" so she could get a divorce, Ayban said

According to the report, another commission member, Hadi al-Yami, said the girl had "expressed her rejection of this marriage".

The divorce was announced after a regional tribal chief and local dignitaries intervened, the report said.

Yami said that the commission is 'trying in cooperation with ministries of justice and health to prevent such marriages," it added.