Thursday, 26 Jul 2018
KUALA LUMPUR: A Syarie lawyers’ association has
agreed for a standard operating procedure (SOP) for child marriage under
Syariah law but activists say the Government must have the political will to
ban it.
Malaysia Syarie Lawyers Association president Musa
Awang said he welcomed the Government’s decision to provide the SOP for
underage marriage.
“However, the legal provisions for underage marriage
fall under the jurisdiction of the state government and it will be up to the
state whether to amend it,” he said.
Musa was responding to PAS vice-president Datuk Mohd
Amar Nik Abdullah who said that imposing a blanket ban on child marriage
contravened religious teachings.
“The Government needs to control child marriage and
not ban it. The SOP is one solution to control it,” he said.
Activist and lawyer Siti Kasim argued that religion
cannot be the basis for national law as it is open to many interpretations.
“It is not difficult to solve this problem if you
have the political will. To me, the SOP is a cop out, unless you require a
single approval point such as the Women, Family and Community Development
Ministry and make the conditions of approval onerous,” she said.
Citing an example, she said the condition could be a
minimum age of 18 for marriage and the child showed full maturity including
evidence of education beyond Form 6 and an understanding of contractual
obligations.
Planned Parenthood regional director for South-East
Asia Nora Murat said the matter is urgent as it impacts the lives of children
and the Government can change the policy and ban child marriage completely.
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