After launching a seminar on the rights of women and children and issues relating to them in Alor Setar yesterday, Nancy Shukri said that minors who want to get married will now be required to obtain a written consent from the menteri besar or chief minister in their respective states, and this is a “new” requirement that was included in the recently-passed amended Child Act 2001 to prevent marriage involving underage girls. [1]
First of all, the recently-passed amended Child Act 2001 does NOT involve any amendment regarding child marriage, nor does it impose any new condition for child marriage. The admission came from the Deputy Minister of Women, Family and Community Development in her reply to the debate of the amendments bill.
Secondly, obtaining consent from the menteri besar or chief minister in the respective state is NOT a “new” requirement. It is a long existing requirement for marriage for civil law. Section 10 of the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976 provides that the legal minimum age for marriage under civil law for both genders is 18, while marriages involving girls above 16 but under 18 must require consent from the state menteri besar or chief minister.
Obviously, Nancy Shukri is wrongly advised. It is erroneous to give the impression that the recently-amended Child Act has provided better protection against child marriage. In contrast, one of our (Pakatan Harapan MPs) biggest criticisms against the amendments bill was the bill has failed to address the issue of child marriage.
Nevertheless, I appreciate Nancy Shukri’s acknowledgement that child marriage “is a very serious issue and should be curbed”. Her statement explained why our government has made the right call to adopt a United Nations resolution to end child marriage at the Human Rights Council in October 2013.
Her attitude is much more promising if compared with her colleague, the Deputy Minister of Women, Family and Community Development, who gave a brush-off by saying the UN resolution “is not binding” when being questioned when the government is going to fulfill our promise to end child marriage during the debate of the bill.
Even if the resolution is not legally binding, don’t we have a moral obligation to fulfill it? Is adopting the UN resolution to end child marriage merely a diplomatic hypocrisy or does our government really has the political will to honour its words?
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