Jordanian legislator joins child bride fight

A Jordanian legislator praised for her role in abolishing a law that let rapists off the hook if they married their victims, has set tackling child marriage as her next challenge.

Nearly 10,500 girls in Jordan were married before their 18th birthdays in 2017, according to the most up to date figures from the United Nations children’s agency, Unicef.

Girls in Jordan can be married from the age of 15 with a judge’s approval, even though the legal marriageable age is 18.

Legislator Wafa Bani Mustafa said even raising it to 16 would reduce the numbers.

“I am optimistic child marriage will decrease if we change the age to 16,” she said during a recent visit to Beirut.

A significant proportion are believed to be Syrian girls after an influx of refugees from Jordan’s war-ravaged neighbour, with families marrying off daughters young to give them financial security and protection from sexual violence.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have fled their homeland since the war started in 2011 and there are more than 670,000 registered Syrian refugees in Jordan, according to the UN.

“We need to raise the age of exceptions to 16 – then slowly maybe this will be the first step to making it to 18 with no exceptions,” Mustafa said.

In 2017, Jordan’s parliament voted to abolish a law that allowed rapists to escape punishment by marrying their victims after a years-long campaign led by Mustafa.