WHILE news of an 11-year-old Thai girl marrying a 41-year-old rubber trader in Kelantan generated an uproar last month, accounts of a 13-year-old bride and her 19-year-old husband largely went unnoticed.

Despite repeated calls by women’s and child rights groups over the last few decades, child marriage remains a persistent problem and one with a strong link to poverty.

Last year, 359 non-Muslim minors aged between 13 and 17 were married. Two out of five of their partners were minors themselves.

For Muslims, the numbers were much higher, with more than 1,000 children getting married before they reached 18, according to official statistics given since 2011.

Sarawak, Sabah and Kelantan are the top three states with the highest number of underage marriage applications for Muslims. The three states are also among the poorest in the country.

Between 2000 and 2010, the number of married girls aged between 15 and 19 in Malaysia increased by 50%, from 53,196 to 80,195.

During the same period, the number of married boys from the same age group increased nearly sevenfold – from 11,833 to 72,640.

Data for the number of boys and girls who married when they were under 15 were not available in the 2010 census for a comparison with 2000.

Child marriages are deemed “acceptable” by some quarters because of misguided beliefs that the act is an Islamic custom, a claim which the Joint Action Group has vehemently dismissed.

“Child marriage is not an obligation (not wajib) nor encouraged by Islam (not sunat). The tradition (sunnah) often quoted is the practice by Prophet Muhammad on his marriage to Aishah,” the grouping said in a statement last month.

“There is no concrete evidence that Aishah was nine years old at the point of her marriage and there has been other studies that assert that she was much older (19) when she married the Prophet.”

Sisters in Islam, a Muslim women’s rights group, said a recent joint report between Al-Azhar University, Egypt, and Unicef declared that child marriage is no more than a custom, without religious backing.

“It is not part of shariah or worship and it leads without doubt to significant adverse effects. Therefore, the preferred age of marriage is after 18 years.

“Marriage is a religious and social responsibility that demands the ability and willingness of both husband and wife to bear its responsibilities, so it is not right to apply this burden to children,” the report said.

With a growing number of developed and developing Muslim-majority countries raising the age limit of marriage to 18 worldwide, all eyes are on Putrajaya on the measures it would take to end child marriage in Malaysia. – July 26, 2018.