Thai bride, 11, returns home after uproar

AN 11-YEAR-OLD child bride has been returned to Thailand following an outcry over her marriage to a Malaysian man 30 years her senior.

Malaysian Muslims below the age of 16 are allowed to wed with the permission of religious courts, but the union between the girl and the 41-year-old trader was widely shared on social media and reignited calls to end child marriage.

The ceremony took place in June over the border in Thailand’s Muslimmajority south, in Narathiwat province, to where the girl returned on Wednesday after “immense pressure from Malaysian media”, said Suraporn Prommool, the provincial governor.

The 11-year-old is believed to be the trader’s third wife. Suraporn said she is having counselling because of the intense level of attention.

He added that the marriage was not recognised under Buddhist-majority Thailand’s civil law, but it took place under the auspices of an Islamic council and that her parents gave consent.

“We cannot do anything [to annul the marriage] because they married under the religious law,” he said.

The trader could face six months in jail if it is found that he did not get permission in Malaysia. The girl was born in Thailand, to parents who labour in Malaysia’s vast rubber plantations, and Suraporn said she does not speak Thai well.

A Unicef representative said the case was “unacceptable” and called on the government to ban child marriage.