KUCHING: The Sarawak Women for Women Society (SWWS) is gathering petition signatures to call on the government to ban child marriage in Sarawak.
The society stated that the petition signatures will be presented to the Sarawak State Legislative Assembly (DUN) and those who are interested can visit its Bukansalahkamek exhibition at Old Court House.
“Our volunteers will be there to assist from 11am to 8pm until the end of our exhibition on Oct 31,” it said in a social media post.
The society pointed out that child marriage robs children of their childhood and can result in serious long-term consequences on their lives as well as health.
“Child marriage refers to any formal marriage or informal union (where partners live as if married) between a child under the age of 18 and an adult or another child.
“Based on statistics in 2018, at least 1,500 children marry every year in Malaysia. Meanwhile the global estimates based in 2019, one in five young women aged 20 to 24 years old married before their 18th birthday in comparison to one in 30 young men,” it said.
Malaysia upholds the principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Sustainable Development Goals which call for global action to end the harmful practice by 2030.
The government of Malaysia is committed to addressing the factors of child marriage through the National Strategy Plan in Handling the Causes of Child Marriage (2020 – 2025) which is being monitored by a Steering Committee chaired by the secretary general of the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development.
Among the global impacts of child marriage are married girls are more vulnerable to domestic violence, many married children suffer disrupted emotional and psychological development.
Besides that, married children are less likely to remain in school thus leading to a higher risk of sustained poverty, their complications during pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death for girls between ages 15 and 19 as well as the infant mortality rate is higher for teenage mothers.
