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"A girl below 18 is often not fit to take the family responsibility especially if she quickly gives birth (after marriage)," Eissa said. (Asharq Al-Awsat photo) |
CAIRO — Coming under local and international criticism after a series of marriages of young girls to men at the age of their fathers, Saudi Arabia is considering a total ban on underage marriages.
"Among the options that are available and excluding the issue of puberty, is to ban marriage for (people) under 18," Justice Minister Mohammed al-Eissa told the Arabic-speaking Asharq al-Awsat daily on Saturday, May 2.
His remarks came two days after an eight-year old girl marrying a man more than 40 years her senior won divorce from a Saudi court following a months-long plight.
The girl regained her freedom after an out-of-court settlement with her 50-year-old husband who refused to divorce her twice before the court.
The Saudi girl was forced by her father to marry the old man last August in exchange for about $13,000.
But the girl's mother had filed a lawsuit demanding the marriage be annulled, but the court upheld the marriage twice after failing to persuade the husband to divorce.
The court also ruled that the girl would have to wait until she reached puberty to file a petition then.
The case was one of numerous child marriage cases highlighted by Saudi media in the recent months.
Unfit
The justice minister said the ban, if approved, would help solve one of the most continuous problems facing Saudi society.
"A girl below 18 is often not fit to take the family responsibility especially if she quickly gives birth (after marriage)," Eissa said.
For this reason, the majority of child marriages end in divorce, he noted.
Currently, Saudi Arabia has no legal age limit for marriage.
Though the girl must give her consent to the marriage, some marriage officials set the term aside.
In many child marriages, girls are given away to older men in return for hefty dowries or as a result of long-standing custom in which a father promises his daughters and sons to marriage while children.
According to local statistics, in the most of these cases, the marriage is concluded without the girl's knowledge or consent.
A United Nations report on child marriage in 2005 found that 100 million girls were expected to marry by the age of 18 before 2015.
The worst countries for child marriage were Niger, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, India and Bangladesh.
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