The ar­gu­ments ad­vanced by In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion (IRO) pres­i­dent Broth­er Har­ryper­sad Ma­haraj for the preser­va­tion of State-sanc­tioned child mar­riage are fright­en­ing­ly sim­i­lar to those used in the past to jus­ti­fy oth­er prac­tices of abuse, dis­crim­i­na­tion and ex­ploita­tion.

As the Hin­du Women's Or­gan­i­sa­tion high­light­ed in their state­ment on the mat­ter, these laws should no longer be on the books in T&T. In­deed, to take the point even fur­ther, re­moval of such ar­cha­ic laws which are dri­ven by pa­tri­ar­chal val­ues and the de­sire to con­trol fe­male sex­u­al­i­ty, are long over­due.

a four Acts deal­ing with mar­riage in T&T are in all con­flict with in­ter­na­tion­al con­ven­tions to which this coun­try is a sig­na­to­ry, in­clud­ing the Con­ven­tion for the Rights of the Child and the Con­ven­tion on the Elim­i­na­tion of all forms of Dis­crim­i­na­tion Against Women. They have no place in a coun­try that as­pires to be pro­gres­sive and en­light­ened.

Un­der­age mar­riages are still be­ing sanc­tioned in this coun­try be­cause while the four Acts stip­u­late ages of con­sent, they do not give an age for mar­riage. The Mar­riage Act which gov­erns civ­il and Chris­t­ian mar­riages sets the age of con­sent at 18 for males and fe­males.

The Mar­riage and Di­vorce Act which gov­erns Mus­lim mar­riages and di­vorces sets the age of con­sent at 16 for males and 12 for fe­males, and the Hin­du Mar­riage Act sets the age of con­sent at 18 for males and 14 for fe­males but con­tains pro­vi­sions for per­sons un­der these ages to be mar­ried with con­sent. The Or­isha Mar­riage Act sets the age of con­sent at 18 for males and 16 for fe­males.

There are glar­ing le­gal loop­holes which can be ex­ploit­ed–and of­ten are–to vi­o­late the ba­sic hu­man rights of girls in this coun­try.

If the opin­ions ex­pressed by Broth­er Ma­haraj are a true rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the po­si­tion of the IRO, then it means that a wor­ry­ing num­ber of re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions are en­dors­ing laws that al­low un­der­age girls to be giv­en in mar­riage with all the well doc­u­ment­ed neg­a­tive con­se­quences in­volved.

It would in­deed be shock­ing if it is a fact that the re­li­gious groups that should be oc­cu­py­ing the moral high ground on this mat­ter, have no prob­lem with the mar­riage of a girl as young as 12.

That means they are giv­ing their con­sent to arrange­ments which re­sult in girls drop­ping out of school, fac­ing se­ri­ous health com­pli­ca­tions and even death from ear­ly preg­nan­cy and child­bear­ing, and greater risk of do­mes­tic abuse.

It can­not be re­in­forced enough that preg­nan­cy is among the lead­ing caus­es of death for girls ages 15 to 19 around the world. Al­so, girls in that age group are two to six times more like­ly to con­tract HIV and are more like­ly to ex­pe­ri­ence do­mes­tic vi­o­lence than their peers who mar­ry lat­er.

The IRO pres­i­dent would have this coun­try be­lieve that mar­ry­ing off an un­der­age girl pre­vents abor­tions and sui­cides. How­ev­er his claims, which are not backed up by any re­search, con­tra­dict ac­tu­al stud­ies done by rep­utable agen­cies such as the In­ter­na­tion­al Cen­tre for Re­search on Women (ICRW).

Their re­search shows that girls mar­ried be­fore 18 are twice as like­ly to be beat­en, slapped or threat­ened by their hus­bands. They al­so show signs of sex­u­al abuse and post-trau­mat­ic stress, such as feel­ings of hope­less­ness, help­less­ness and se­vere de­pres­sion.

On this is­sue, the ar­gu­ments against can­not be dis­put­ed, even in the face of long held re­li­gious tra­di­tions. Mar­riage of mi­nors is wrong and should be out­lawed.