A PRE-PANDEMIC decline in child marriage around the world was not reflected in Malaysia and the rest of Southeast Asia, said Sarah Norton-Staal of Unicef Malaysia.

In fact, child marriage increased in the region while decreasing elsewhere in the world, said the agency’s child protection chief at the launch of the report, Unicef Advocacy Brief: Towards ending child marriage in Malaysia.

“Data showed that there has been a decline in child marriages in other parts of the world, but SEA and Malaysia have been contradicting global trends and showing an increase,” she said.

That is backed by a rise in teen pregnancies in the region, where most child marriages occur via informal unions, she said.

The report showed 1,856 children were married in Malaysia in 2018, and that 83% of them, or eight in 10, were Muslim.

Lee Lyn-Ni, child protection specialist at Unicef Malaysia, said the high rate of child marriages among Muslims was due to the current laws.

The Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976 sets the minimum age for marriage at 18. 

The marriageable age for Muslims, however, is, 18 for boys and 16 for girls. And those under the legal age may seek permission to marry from the shariah court. 

For non-Muslims, it is compulsory for either party who has not reached the age of 21 to seek their parents’ permission to marry. 

Meanwhile, the Covid-19 pandemic threatens to undo all the gain that has been achieved in the battle against child marriage.

School closure, economic stress, service disruptions, pregnancies and parental deaths due to the Covid-19 pandemic has contributed to a global rise in child marriage, including in Malaysia, said Norton-Staal.

These factors are putting vulnerable girls at higher risk of child marriage, which was on the decline before the coronavirus emerged, she said.

In the last 10 years, Unicef said the proportion of young women globally who were married as children decreased by 15%, from nearly one in four to one in five, the equivalent of some 25 million marriages averted, a gain that is now under threat.

“Less children going to school since the start of the pandemic and the rise in poverty are the two key reasons child marriages are on the rise globally”, Norton-Staal said.

“The other contributing factor, also tied to poverty, is pressure on parents to marry off their children as they can no longer afford to care for them”. – March 9, 2021.