Kali­fa Clyne

Gov­ern­ment must lead by ex­am­ple to abol­ish the com­mon law age for mar­riage and amend the Mar­riage Act of 1923.This was the com­bined view that re­sult­ed from dis­cus­sions by pan­el­lists on Thurs­day af­ter­noon at the In­sti­tute for Gen­der De­vel­op­ment Stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) St Au­gus­tine cam­pus.The fo­rum, ti­tled Is it Bet­ter For Girls To Mar­ry? Who De­cides? was chaired by lec­tur­er Gabrielle Ho­sein and in­clud­ed a five mem­ber pan­el.Speak­ing first at the fo­rum, Deputy Prin­ci­pal of UWI Rho­da Red­dock, point­ed out that T&T had a to­tal of four mar­riage acts, each ap­ply­ing to dif­fer­ent re­li­gious sec­tors. These in­clud­ed a Mus­lim act, Hin­du act, Chris­t­ian Act and Or­isha act.Red­dock said the ex­is­tence of four mar­riage acts re­flect­ed the state re­sponse to eth­nic, cul­tur­al and re­li­gious de­mands from cit­i­zens based on a recog­ni­tion of dif­fer­ences.She said like pol­i­tics and pub­lic hol­i­days in T&T, the four mar­riage acts re­flect­ed a mul­ti-cul­tur­al ap­proach.

How­ev­er, Red­dock al­so point­ed out that the four mar­riage acts con­tra­dict­ed the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act and vi­o­lat­ed con­ven­tions of which T&T had rat­i­fied."There is no set, le­gal age for mar­riage and yet T&T is sig­na­to­ry to the Con­ven­tion on the Rights of the Child which stip­u­lates that the coun­tries signed must have a set le­gal age for mar­riage," said Red­dock.Giv­ing a brief his­to­ry on the Mar­riage Act of 1923, at­tor­ney Gai­etry Par­gass said T&T had in­her­it­ed the act from Eng­land and with it com­mon law which stat­ed the le­gal age for mar­riage for girls at 12 and for boys at 14.Par­gass said she could not un­der­stand the lack of po­lit­i­cal will to make a pow­er­ful state­ment by amend­ing the Mar­riage Act."The state hides be­hind re­li­gious and cul­tur­al dis­course with­out tak­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. There is no rea­son why the Gov­ern­ment can­not in­tro­duce a bill in Par­lia­ment and sev­er the civ­il po­si­tion from re­li­gion," Par­gass said.

She said there was al­so con­flict cur­rent­ly be­tween the age of mar­riage and the age of con­sent."In T&T the age of sex­u­al con­sent is 16, yet girls can get mar­ried at twelve and boys at 14," said Par­gass.She be­moaned the fact that on the one hand it was a hefty crim­i­nal of­fence yet on the oth­er it is okay as long as the par­ties were mar­ried."If a child is un­der 14 there is no de­fence un­der the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act and the max­i­mum penal­ty is life im­pris­on­ment, yet in an­oth­er case it is okay if she is mar­ried," said Par­gass.Par­gass said the law did not al­low a per­son un­der 18 to en­ter in­to a con­tract, yet a child of twelve could be en­tered in­to a mar­riage con­tract with the con­sent of par­ents or guardian.Pres­i­dent of the Fam­i­ly Plan­ning As­so­ci­a­tion, Jacque­line Sharpe paint­ed a grim pic­ture of the life of women in child mar­riages.

Sharpe told a sto­ry of 15-year-old girl on the verge of sui­cide be­cause she was trapped in a mar­riage with an old­er man."Child mar­riage in­volves health risks to women, young moth­ers have dou­ble the chance of dy­ing dur­ing child­birth," said Sharpe."Girls and women should ex­pect that the Gov­ern­ment will pro­tect them and the state should recog­nise its re­spon­si­bil­i­ty."While Mo­hammed agreed that the act need­ed to be amend­ed, she said the strat­e­gy or ap­proach tak­en by the Gov­ern­ment need­ed to in­clude di­a­logue with the var­i­ous re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions.