“Provide progress report on ending child marriages, Rina!”

ON Jan 15 2020, the-then Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, who was also women, family and community development minister, launched the National Strategy Plan in Handling Causes of Child Marriage. It was a five-year plan which outlined 17 strategies and involved 61 agencies, spanning 58 programmes.

It was aimed at raising awareness, change perception and stigma related to underage marriage issues in the society and address six main contributing factors leading to child marriages as follows:-

· Low household income and poverty;

· Lack or no access to sexual reproductive health education and parenting skills;

· Lack of access to education and poor school attendance;

· Stigma and social norms that dictate that underaged marriage is the best solution to address problems;

· Ambigous laws that provide for marriage under the age of 18;

· Coordination of marital data and underage divorce.

Exactly 39 days after that, the Sheraton Move happened and Pakatan Harapan (Pakatan) was no longer in Government and Datuk Seri Rina Harun  became the new Women, Family and Community Development Minister, along with Siti Zailah Mohd Yusoff, as her trusted deputy.

Despite Rina’s lacklustre performance, I had hoped that she will follow through with the initiative to eradicate child marriages in Malaysia.

To date, she has made one public statement citing that the Perikatan Nasional Government is committed to addressing child marriages in March last year, through Facebook at the launch of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund’s (UNICEF) advocacy brief on ending child marriage in support of the National Strategy Plan in Handling the Causes of Child Marriage launched by Pakatan in January 2020.

But how fare have we come in eradicating child marriages?

Has there been any follow up since?

Last year, in a parliamentary reply to my question on the Government’s initiative to end child marriages, Minister in Prime Minister’s Department in charge of Religious Affairs Idris Ahmad stated that the Government will retain 16 years of age as marriage age for Muslim girls.

Moreover, 2,885 approvals were given for underage Muslim marriages from Sept 1, 2015 until Aug 31, 2018. Another 2,098 applications were approved from Sept 1, 2018 till Oct 31,  2021. No statistics were shared on non-Muslim children in the answer.

Unsurprisingly there was no reaction from Rina, in spite of her ministry spearheading the six-year plan to eradicate child marriages in Malaysia. Siti Zailah was silent as well.

Silence over the best interest of children?

It has been 27 years since Malaysia ratified and became a state party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

Article 24(3) of the CRC states “to take all effective, and appropriate measures with a view to abolishing traditional practices prejudicial, to the health of the children” which was mentioned by Rina herself in her International Women’s Day speech in March 2021, and this certainly includes child marriages as a form of violation against them.

After over two years of lip-service on eradicating child marriages in Malaysia, I call upon Rina and Siti Zailah to report to the Parliament on the progress of the National Strategy Plan in Handling Causes of Child Marriage from Jan 15, 2020 until today. The report should be made available to the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM), the civil society, Malaysian Bar Council and the public to evaluate for themselves how far we have come in ending child marriages.

As a minister, Rina must muster the courage to lobby, convince and advocate that she is on the side of children and not play politics for her own political survival.

She should include lawmakers from both sides of the aisle,  as well as those from civil society, SUHAKAM, the Malaysian Bar Council, UNICEF, Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA), Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) and many others to be partners in her campaign to end child marriages in Malaysia.

Anything less of this would be a clear indication that Rina and her group of “merry women and men” are part of the problem and not the solution. — Feb 6, 2022.

Kasthuri Patto is the MP for Batu Kawan.