SARAWAK will introduce tighter screening procedures to stop non-Muslims from circumventing marriage laws to marry more than once.

State Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister Fatimah Abdullah said between January and April, there were 167 attempts to register a marriage by couples with one partner still legally married to another.

The failure to enforce monogamous marriage among non-Muslims and to prevent those who had got married through a religious ceremony or custom from marrying another at the Registrar of Marriages and vice versa was due to the lack of a system to cross check marriage registrations, said Fatimah today after chairming a special meeting on citizenship at her office

She said the National Registration Department will propose to the Chief Minister’s Office a system that will require all district offices to conduct a marital status check on those applying to get married through a religious ceremony or custom.

Communal leaders will also be directed to check with the district officer the marital status of the couple before presiding over a marriage.

The state installed the Native Customary Marriage Electronic System in December last year. Managed by Majlis Adat Istiadat Sarawak, the system has detected 167 individuals attempting to marry again.

Fatimah said the plugging of loopholes in the system was to protect the welfare of women, children and “even men”.

Under the law, if a man is still in a marriage conducted by law, religion, custom or usage and at the same time, marries another, the woman in the second marriage will not inherit any of the man’s property should he die without leaving a will.

Couples in multiple marriages could also have problems obtaining identification documents and consequently, citizenship for their children who would be deemed born out of wedlock, she said.

Some men have also taken advantage of the loopholes in the law to marry foreign women at the registry even though they are already married via the customary way. – May 25, 2017.