FINANCIAL hardship and a lack of education opportunities are forcing parents in Sabah’s interior district of Pensiangan to marry off their children at a young age, some as early as 12.

Despite campaigns by civil society groups, child marriage remains prevalent, especially in rural villages, said villager Jalius Endim.

About two years ago, an awareness programme was held in the small town and nearby villages to educate locals on the legal age for marriage, which is 18 for girls.

The programme has brought down the number of such marriages in the town area over the past two years, but the number of cases in remote villages remains unrecorded, said Endim.

Based on reports, there have been ceremonies held in some villages involving children as young as 12, he said.

“Over the past two or three years, the Nabawan district office has issued a circular to stop marriages involving minors,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

Following the circular, the number of reported cases dropped, but Endim said the dip could mean that villagers are either heeding the law or merely keeping the marriages a secret.

Sabah has long had a notorious record of having a high number of child marriages, especially among girls from rural areas.

Poverty, lack of education opportunities and a detachment from the more developed world have been cited as some of the reasons for the high figure.

Poor and remote

Sabah’s Pensiangan town is about 20km from the Kalimantan border and a seven-hour drive from Kota Kinabalu, including more than 50km of rugged timber tracks.

The town becomes almost impossible to reach when it rains.

Tucked deep in Sabah’s jungle, Pensiangan has a population of around 300 from the Murut Bohol ethnic group.

But, there are thousands more living in the surrounding villages that spread out within the district right up to Mukim Nabawan, near the Kalimantan border.

The Murut people are largely hunters, tracking wild boar and other wildlife for self-consumption or selling them as bush meat.

Martin Ansou, 37, said their livelihood largely depends on the jungle, with some families farming tapioca.

“Some of us also do a bit of rubber tapping, but the income is not much.”

Ansou said he earns less than RM500 a month, insufficient to support his three sons through school.

SK Pensiangan is unique as it holds “comprehensive nine” status, which covers Year One through Form Three.

“There was no early education like kindergarten here previously, so most of us go straight to Year One,” said Ansou.

“But, it’s hard for us to learn as we cannot read the alphabet.”

He said most of his peers could not continue on to Form Four, so instead, they started working or helping their parents.

“So largely, to reduce our family burden, the girls especially are told to get married at 15 or earlier.”

Child marriage in Malaysia, although frowned upon by most communities, is still tolerated, especially among low-income families.

The country’s legal minimum age for marriage under civil law is 18 for both sexes. However, girls can marry at 16 with the permission of their states’ chief ministers or menteris besar, while shariah law sets a minimum age of 16 for girls and allows marriages for younger ones with the permission of the shariah court.

In June, the case of a 41-year-old man who took on an 11-year-old as his third wife shocked the nation, and sparked outrage from local and international children’s rights groups, which called on the new Pakatan Harapan government to ban marriages for all under 18.

A 15-year-old girl reportedly married a 44-year-old People’s Volunteer Corp member in Kelantan a month later.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Mujahid Yusof Rawa said shariah court judges must follow the standard operating procedures approved at the Shariah Judges’ Conference two months ago when presiding over marriages involving minors.

The SOPs include carrying out family background checks, and psychological and health assessments, as well as marriage application registration by the parents of minors.

However, United Nations special rapporteur Maud de Boer-Buquicchio recently said the government should do away with all such SOPs, and simply raise and enforce the minimum age for marriage to 18 with no exceptions.

The government must reach out to religious and customary rights leaders to convince them about the negative implications of child marriage, she said.

“By marrying them off early, you deprive them of their rights to education and protection.” – October 4, 2018.