DPM: We’ll raise minimum marriage age to 18

If we can’t have open discourse in Malaysia today to identify problems and work out solutions, when else can we do it?

PETALING JAYA: The government is in the process of raising the minimum marriage age to 18, said Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.

She said she chaired a meeting on Sept 13 with all the relevant stakeholders on this issue.

“The best interest of the child must always be considered,” she said in a statement yesterday.

Dr Wan Azizah, who is also Women, Family and Community Development Minister, said a paper would be prepared by the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) and her ministry to raise the marriage age for Muslims.

The paper would be presented to the meeting of mentris besar and chief ministers to garner support from the states to raise the legal minimum age.

“A Cabinet paper is also being prepared to raise the minimum age of marriage to 18 for non-Muslims,” she said.

As for customary marriages, she said the respective customary heads would be informed of the dangers of underage marriages to the health and safety of the child.

Wan Azizah, however, said amending the law would take time and that in the meantime, they would be meeting the Department of Syariah Judiciary Malaysia on stricter and more thorough guidelines for Syariah court judges in approving child marriages.

She said she had also spoken to Ministers in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Dr Mujahid Yusof Rawa and Datuk Liew Vui Keong to look into the loopholes and inconsistencies between Syariah and civil laws in relation to child marriages.

Dr Wan Azizah, who had been criticised for saying that a 15-yearold girl in Kelantan had given her consent to marrying a 44-year-old divorcee and that both of them “mutually liked” one another, also made a clarification of her comments.

“What I said was just a descriptive statement of what the child explained to my officers,” she said.

Marriage, she said, should not be used as a way out of poverty.

She added that she had instructed her officers to examine current laws to ensure the welfare of children were taken care of.

“Amending laws is only part of the solution. A holistic approach must include education, welfare nets, poverty education and support systems.

“The protection and rights of children is of paramount interest to me and I will not compromise on that matter,” she said.

IN her book, If the Oceans Were Ink, Carla Power recalled the time when she informed a close friend that she, a secular Jew, would be studying the Quran with Sheikh Mohammad Akram Nadwi, a scholar with the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. The friend requested that Power “ask him why Muslim men treat women so badly”.

When she did ask, Sheikh Mohammad Akram replied that it is because men weren’t reading the Quran properly. He explained that many Muslims tend to read the Quran selectively, taking phrases out of context.

The Sheikh further argued that the patriarchal practises denying women our rights were simply clinging to customs, and not the Islamic faith. He even said that preventing women from pursuing knowledge “was like the pre-Islamic custom of burying girls alive”.

This phrase from Power’s book resonated with me throughout this week, as we saw yet another report of child marriage. Let’s face facts – once girls are married, they are stigmatised from attending schools and pursuing education.

When girls can’t access education, they miss the opportunities to be highly skilled workers, savvy entrepreneurs, or even high-flying politicians. In short, these girls risk not having financial independence.

The latest report on child marriage was closely followed by our Deputy Prime Minister’s comment that the 15 year-old girl consented to the marriage; that the government is powerless against such cases.

I sincerely hope that Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Was Ismail was misquoted, as it is a fact that children cannot provide legal consent, more so for such a thing as life-changing as a marriage.

I refuse to believe that the government is powerless. They have been given the people’s mandate in a democratic election, have they not?

( Editor’s note: Dr Wan Azizah issued a statement yesterday to reiterate that she was against child marriage and that the government will raise the minimum age of marriage to 18 years. She elaborated on what is being done to move in this direction.)

Various factors lead to child marriage. Top of this list is indubitably poverty and inequality; when parents cannot afford to provide basic necessities for their children, there is pressure to seek a better life for their daughters.

Therefore, marriage to a wealthier individual appears to be an easy, and sometimes, the most plausible option. Funny how these wealthy men offering options to escape poverty do not cite that their faith requires providing alms and charitable donations to help those in need, without having to marry a young girl.

Further, don’t these cases of child marriage highlight the failure of our economic policies in reducing inequality?

In the case of child marriage, the government can exercise its powers by banning all forms of such marriages; implementing stricter child protection laws, especially on sexual grooming; and removing any exemptions that allow state-sanctioned paedophilia.

This should be in line with implementing policies that reduce inequality and eradicate poverty, as these have been proven to be the root cause of many child marriages.

In Malaysia today, parents should not be desperate enough to have to marry off their daughters. There should be policies already in place that provide short-term measures to assist the poor. These should be financially aligned with long-term measures including provision of education and scholarship opportunities to allow young girls to move towards economic prosperity and break their family’s poverty cycle.

The issue of child marriage was also raised with Sheikh Mohammad Akram in Power’s book. Two young women students in Oxford, Arzoo and Mehrun, argued with the Sheikh, whose initial stance was that child marriage was allowed in Islam.

Their argument was based on publicly available information – where parents are forced to marry off their kids for money rather than protecting the child.

They cited reported cases of internal bleeding and prolapsed uteruses common to those who have experienced underage intercourse and underage childbirth, and they asked the Sheikh how Islamic law could condone anything that led to such suffering.

After weeks of debate, the Sheikh announced that he had revised his position. The debates nudged him to look further. After researching Islamic scholarship, he found an eighth-century judge and jurist, Ibn Shubruma, with a sound fatwa against the practice of child marriage.

Ibn Shubruma argued that the issue hinged on autonomy. When girls are married in childhood, their autonomy was taken away from them.

Two young women with no political authority or financial lobbying power have changed a conservative scholar’s mind. The Sheikh even admitted that he has learnt from the debate with the two young women.

What is stopping our political elite from ensuring there will be no more child marriages in Malaysia?

As shown by Arzoo and Mehrun, we can contradict great scholars, engage in debate, and allow for discourse on issues as sensitive as the practise of religion.

As shown from Power’s friendship with the Sheikh, there can secular and conservative views existing within the same space, both learning from each other.

Change for the better can only come when people dare to speak up and challenge authority to see what and where the real problems are, and contribute to finding solutions. Indeed, we are not powerless in prosperous, democratically free Malaysia.

Lyana Khairuddin is a virologist turned policy nerd living between London and Kuala Lumpur. The views expressed here are entirely her own.