Child Marriage In Islam

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Child marriages and Islam Samuel gulagattu What is a child marriage? Child marriage is defined as a formal marriage or an informal union before the marriageable age, 18. Though boys and girls are affected by child marriages, girls are most disparately affected. Though 18 years is set as the legal marriageable age, many jurisdictions and regional laws gave an opportunity for early marriages with the parental consent. Child marriage ruins a girl’s life and cuts her off from education, which is very important at an early age. There are many factors contributing to child marriages…show more content…
In Niger, which is one of the Muslim populated countries, 3 out of 4 girls are married before they are 18. 76% of all girls under 18 are married in one of the world’s least developed country, Niger. Saudi Arabia, one of the Islamic countries, has no legal marriage age which voids the girls’ security. International organization UNICEF suggested 18 years as the minimum age to be married. While having a sexual intercourse with a woman without her will is said to be a rape and is punishable, it is named as a responsibility of the girl who is married to involve in the sexual act with her man though she knows nothing of that, not interested, or even if she has not attained puberty to engage in such sexual acts. Some of the Islamic countries follow the religious covenant. Marrying off girls before the legal marriageable age in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia along with other countries in Asia and Africa is still widespread despite of strict laws against child…show more content…
To our surprise, instead of banning child marriages, Iraq legalized child marriages by stating that girls of 9 years can get divorce which implicitly means that girls can be married even before reaching 9 years. The attempts to push the legal marriage age to 15yrs in Saudi Arabia were crushed by Grand mufti, Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al al-Sheikh who is the most senior religious authority in the country saying that Islam supports men marrying underage girls and so, there is no minimum age for marriage in the country, which is under the Sharia law. Nigeria, one of the Muslim countries, mostly based on the religious grounds make it prone to the child marriages. According to the UNICEF, the average marriage age in North-western Nigeria is 14.6yrs. However, it should be admitted that not only religious factors are the reasons in the country but also poverty and lack of

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