After uproar, child bride goes back to Thailand
BANGKOK — An 11-year-old bride to a Malaysian man 30 years her senior has returned to her native Thailand, where she is under the care of the local social welfare department.
Ayu, who is being identified only by her nickname for her protection, was married in June as the third wife of Che Abdul Karim Che Abdul Hamid, a Muslim rubber trader from the northern Malaysian state of Kelantan. The case has provoked soul-searching in Malaysia, where the prevalence of child marriage belies the Southeast Asian nation’s modern outlook.
Earlier this month, Thai officials picked up Ayu and her parents in a Thai town on the border with Malaysia, said Surapol Prommool, governor of Narathiwat province in southern Thailand. She is now being cared for in a Thai government institution by an allfemale staff of social workers, psychologists and doctors.
Che Abdul Karim has not been allowed to visit her there, Surapol said.
“For us, the most important thing now is to treat her mental condition,” he said. “We are working to make her calm and feel better.”
Malaysian law allows for child marriage in certain cases. Muslims, who are bound by Shariah law in many civil affairs, can wed below the age of 16 if they receive permission from a religious court. Non-Muslims between the ages of 16 and 18 can marry with the consent of state-level ministers.
Last year, Malaysia passed a law against sexual grooming, in which an adult creates an emotional bond with a child for the purpose of sexual exploitation. An effort to ban child marriage, however, failed. One legislator from the then governing party, who had also served as a Shariah court judge, said a 9-yearold girl could be marriageable if she had gone through puberty.
But Malaysia’s new government, which took power in May, has said that it is committed to combating underage marriage, which is most common among younger children from the country’s Muslim Malay and indigenous populations.
“We want to raise the age of marriage to 18 years and above,” said Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, Malaysia’s deputy prime minister and minister of women, family and community development. “We have the political will to do that, but I have to engage all the stakeholders. That takes some time.”
Wan Azizah said that the attorney general’s office is currently investigating whether Che Abdul Karim violated the country’s laws against sexual grooming, as well as other rules governing child marriage. While Che Abdul Karim said that he would not “touch” Ayu until she was 16, the pair went on a holiday together to a Malaysian hill retreat, according to a social media post seen by his second wife.
Last month, Che Abdul Karim was fined $450 by a Kelantan Shariah court for marrying Ayu in Thailand without the court’s permission.
Although Ayu was born in Thailand, she has lived most of her life in northern Malaysia, where her father struggled to make ends meet as a rubber tapper. The family lived in a wooden shack with no running water, and Ayu did not attend school.