00:10Hi, welcome back to Consider This. I'm Melissa Idris. Let's continue our discussion about the
00:15current state of child marriage in Malaysia. What progress have we made in addressing this issue?
00:20Let's speak now to Professor Datuk Dr. Nouraida Endot, who is Professor at University Science
00:27Malaysia's Unit for Research on Women and Gender, better known as Kanita. Prof. Nouraida,
00:33thank you so much for joining me on the show today. Can you maybe give us an overview look
00:39at how you are seeing child marriage in Malaysia today? Are we closer to ending the practice?
00:49Thank you, Melissa. And thank you, Aesrawani, for inviting me. This is a very, very important
00:55topic that I feel that we do need to always keep a lookout on. So I have actually been looking
01:02at
01:02the numbers. So, and many years ago, actually, I have done a study on child marriage, commissioned
01:09by UNICEF. I found that, you know, in the last, at least we have data at least from 2018, the
01:17latest
01:17year 2018 to 2023. So the, within the five-year period, there was actually a reduction, about 37%,
01:27but if we look at the yearly reduction, it is on average only about 13% reduction every year. Although
01:35we do see, you know, from 2018, the number, 2018 is significant because there was a large national
01:41study on child marriage. Before that, my study was around 2011 and 2013. So, but, but we found that
01:51in, in 2018, the number is 1,856 and in 2023, the number is recorded as 923. So we are
02:00in a sort of
02:01three-digit number right now. But, you know, I feel that like, like for example, my, my other pet area,
02:07violence against women, um, uh, any kind of, uh, any, any child marriage, one child marriage is a concern.
02:15Uh, so the number 923 is not, it's not something that we need to be happy about. I think we
02:22do need to,
02:23to find sometimes because, uh, uh, uh, statistics, the issue with statistics is that because sometimes,
02:29uh, the data may not reflect the actual, uh, occurrence, uh, on, on the ground, uh, and what does
02:37the data mean in terms, in terms of the numbers? Does it mean, um, if it's the, uh, out of
02:42all registered
02:42marriages, where marriage, uh, where marriage, uh, uh, is contracted by, um, a person below the, the, the, the age
02:51of 18 at that point of time? Or, you know, sometimes the number may have, uh, may have moved because,
02:57uh, the,
02:59uh, if you're taking a composite number, the, the, the, the, the person who were married, uh,
03:04previously as a child, the, the, the statistics now become, become an adult. So, you have to look
03:09at very carefully. It is important, for example, to look at the number of, uh, registration of marriage
03:15that year, uh, by a child, you know, so, uh, where, where the marriage got, at least one, one child,
03:22uh, uh, uh, in, in the relationship. Yeah. The pervasiveness. Yeah. Prof, thank you for,
03:28for highlighting that because I think the context of the data, the context of the stats
03:32is very important. So, um, we have to look at it in its, um, in its context. Talk to me
03:39about
03:39the policy framework that governs how Malaysia approaches ending child marriage. We had a national
03:46strategic plan, uh, to handle the causes of child marriage, but that I think expired in
03:512025. Where are we now? Do we have a national approach to this? Um, I think the short answer
03:57is no. I don't, I don't think there was anything, uh, beyond 2020, the, the national, uh, strategy
04:02for 2025. But I think, I mean, uh, it doesn't really matter, but it, uh, if, for example, uh,
04:09the government would, would like to extend, um, you know, would like to extend, uh, the,
04:14the progress or the, or the, the workings of the national, uh, the, the policy or the
04:19national plan, um, because the, the content of the plan, uh, is, you know, is fairly
04:25comprehend, uh, comprehensive. It tackles a lot of, uh, a lot of the things that we, I
04:30mean, I think people working on the ground actually wants to do, to look at the, the
04:34socio-economic context, uh, of child marriage, you know, uh, does it happen, uh, because of
04:39poverty, uh, what kind of situation, uh, uh, that it happens. And also, I think very importantly
04:44to, to also, to also highlight the fact that 90%, uh, of child marriages, uh, happen where
04:51the, the, the child is a girl, you know? So there's a gen, there's a gender, uh, element,
04:57the, the gender context to this, you know, because the, the, the one, one, one, uh, result
05:04is by default because the law itself make it, uh, easier, uh, or, or make it permissible
05:12for girls to marry below the age of, uh, 18. So I think this is, is, this is very important
05:18because the context that allow it to happen still exists. So, um, for, for, for Muslim
05:25particularly, uh, only, uh, only, uh, Selangor and Kedah has, uh, amended their law to equalize,
05:32uh, the age at marriage, uh, the minimum age at marriage for both boys and girls to be
05:3718, to be adult, uh, age of majority. But the rest of the states, you know, Sarawak
05:41has talked about it, but I don't think it has amended. So, but the rest of the states, there
05:45were, there were some talk about it. I think in Perlis, there were discussions and, and then,
05:49uh, it just sort of, uh, did not, uh, go through. Um, so, um, so, so the context still exists.
05:57You know, the, the, the, the idea that you, you, you should, uh, because, so for example,
06:03because in Islam, there is no real, um, uh, uh, there is no real prohibition, uh, to, to,
06:10to be married as long as you are, uh, Balin, you are of age in terms of the, in terms
06:15of, uh,
06:15uh, religious, uh, uh, context. Um, but, you know, the, the Islamic law is also very much
06:22open, uh, to interpretation in time and space. So, the, the lack of actual, uh, the lack
06:30of actual law rule about the age actually is, is a kind of, uh, it's a kind of, um, uh,
06:38blessing
06:38in a sense that it allows us to, to do it based on time and space. So, the contemporary context
06:45is that, you know, um, below 18 is a very, it's still a very young age, uh, in terms
06:50of the social, in terms of biology, in terms of, uh, the socioeconomic, uh, situation where
06:56children are still going to school, uh, need to have at least the minimum education of being
07:01in secondary school, although people, people, of course, we, now we make, uh, uh, secondary
07:06education compulsory. So, I think these are all very related in, in, in, uh, in making sure
07:12that the policy makers and the law makers particularly will, will have a different
07:17mindset about the, the issue of child marriage. I mean, it is not, it is not grossly
07:23inappropriate to, uh, in religion to say, you know, you cannot marry below the age of,
07:29below the age of the mental capacity of our children.
07:34Absolutely. It's very much in line with the principles of Islam as well. Can I ask you,
07:39you mentioned policy makers and law makers, they play such a pivotal role in this, um,
07:44in setting the agenda top down. What would you like to see be the main focus of policy makers
07:49and law makers moving forward in addressing this?
07:52I think the, the law makers and policy makers need to have, uh, uh, more highly intellectual
07:59debates about this issue. I mean, I'm not, I'm not saying they're not intellectuals, but,
08:03you know, but, um, uh, a lay person's observation, a, a, a citizen, cities, from a citizen point
08:10of view, uh, we need, uh, we need to have more serious, more intellectual, more evidence-based
08:17discussion about this issue and not sort of leave it to the periphery. It is, it is very important
08:22because the, the, you know, the impact it has on, on children, uh, in the long term, on, on, on
08:28women
08:28particularly in the long term, because based on, on our, our studies before, you know, the, by, uh, by 23
08:35years, so many of the respondents, uh, when I did the study in 2013, um, uh, many of the, the
08:41respondents
08:42by, by the time they are, uh, 20, uh, they either have multiple number of children, uh, but also
08:50the, the, their marriage would have been dissolved, you know, so, uh, so I think this is, this is very,
08:56very important, uh, uh, to look at and also we do need to see that, you know, the child marriage
09:01in
09:01Malaysia occur not be, not just because children are having sex very young and, and so their, their
09:06parents, uh, required, as a solution, their parents require them to marry, but, but also because
09:12young girls, uh, uh, are preyed upon by adults, um, so, you know, young girls are raped by adults
09:19and the solution is that they, uh, uh, to avoid prosecution, uh, uh, they, uh, the, the,
09:26the perpetrators, uh, offer marriage, uh, to the parents, over marriage, so this is, this
09:31is also very, very, uh, detrimental to the life of, uh, of girls, although of course, uh, in,
09:36in, in, in the case that we had in the past, um, uh, the prosecutor decided to prosecute
09:43anyway for, for rape, uh, you know, uh, uh, someone who's 41, for, who's 40, in his 40s,
09:49who, who got married to a son, to a girl in his, uh, uh, a 12-year-old girl, you
09:53know,
09:53because, because he had raped her, so, I think, um, so these are very, very serious, uh, context
09:59for child marriage to happen, and it is very important to, to ensure that, you know,
10:04in the case of rape, for example, um, marriage is not used, uh, particularly when, when the,
10:10when the victim is, the survivor, uh, young, not used, you know, to, to, to obliterate
10:16or to, um, to cancel out, um, you know, the offense.
10:21Yeah. Prof, thank you so much for being on the show with me today.
10:24Professor Dato, Dr. Nuraida ended their wrapping up this episode of Consider This.
10:28I'm Melissa Idris, signing off for Good Evening.
10:30Thank you so much for watching, and good night.
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