Someone who marry a minor, will cohabit in concubinage with her, will arrange or celebrate such unions, will now be punishable by twelve years in prison.
Le Monde with AFP
Children’s weddings are now prohibited to the Philippines, under a law entered into force Thursday, January 6th. “The state (…) considers child marriage as a mistreating practice of minors because it degrades, degrades and falls the intrinsic value and the dignity of the child,” says the law.
In this Southeast Asian archipelago, one in six girl is married before the age of 18. International Plan, a UK-based rights defense group that has campaigned for the adoption of this law, ranks the Philippines at 12 E in the world’s number of marriages. children concluded in the country.
From now on, anyone who marries a minor, cohabits in concubinage with her, arranges or famous of such unions, is liable to twelve years in prison.
According to the Philippine government, the law is consistent with international conventions on women’s and children’s rights.
500 million women married children in the world
Ana Maria Lives, Director for the Philippines International Plan, welcomed the new law with the France-Press agency (AFP):
“Children’s marriage is a harmful practice that can have a lasting impact throughout the lives of girls and boys. She deprives them of the right to be safe from violence, the right to the right to Education and sexual rights and reproductive health. “
However, some provisions of the law will remain outstanding for a year for Muslim and indigenous communities, where engagement and child marriages are relatively frequent. The purpose of the transition period is to give the government the time to convince the followers of this practice to give it up.
The Philippines, predominantly Catholic countries, have a large Muslim minority, which lives mainly in the south of the country.
In the Muslim autonomous region of the Southern Island of Mindanao, the Vice-President of the Local Parliament, Ziaur-Rahman Adiong, said that several members of his assembly had attempted to convince the President, Rodrigo Dutete, to put his veto to the law, without success. In this region, a 1977 law allows Filipinos Muslims to marry when they reach puberty, defined for women at the date of their first rules.
More than 500 million girls and women currently alive in the world have been married in their childhood, with the highest rates being recorded in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, recalls a report of the United Nations Fund for Childhood (UNICEF) Posted in 2021. Recent data show, however, that children’s marriages are generally declining around the world.