THE government is dragging its feet on child marriage, the Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) said today in criticising Putrajaya for its inaction and evasiveness on the issue.

Its executive director, Sumitra Visvanathan, said at the International Malaysia Law Conference today that it was “is alarming that there has been a delay and prevarication in issuing a clearly worded statement that child marriages are unacceptable and will be banned”.

The issue of child marriage was cast into the spotlight after reports that a 41-year-old man from Gua Musang took an 11-year-old girl to be his third wife in June surfaced, leading to a public outcry.

The marriage was “under investigation”, according to Deputy Prime Minister Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, who added there was insufficient evidence to prosecute the man. The 11-year-old is now in Thailand under the care of authorities there.

Yesterday, prominent human rights activist Ambiga Sreenevasan took the government to task for its failure to take action, saying it could legally do so under the Sexual Offences against Children Act.

Visvanathan said because of this, her hopes that the new government would bring about change had dissipated.

“When the new government came on board, we were filled with so much hope and expectation but we were extremely disappointed at the lack of clarity on child marriage,” she said.

She said the government should learn from its mistakes over the child marriage issue so that such incidents are not repeated.

“I hope they will hold a ‘lessons learned’ (meeting) so that in the future, they will know how to deal with human rights issues.”

The new government had pledged in its election manifesto to raise the minimum marriage age in Malaysia to 18 and promised a review of the relevant laws to ensure gender equality.

Visvanathan said that she was also disappointed by the government failure to deliver on its 30% representation promise. 

“The position of WAO and the Joint Action Group is very clear on this, but unfortunately, our demands were not met.” – August 15, 2018.