Sat 07 September 2019:
A video showing an 11-year-old girl marrying her 22-year-old cousin in rural Iran has drawn new attention to a practice many Iranians believe to be in decline. But our Observer says child marriage is still common in some rural areas.
The video shows a wedding that took place on August 26 in Bahmaei, an impoverished district in southeastern Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province. The bride and groom are seen sitting next to each other and hugging.
Their families look on as a mullah conducts the ceremony, declaring at one point that the groom will pay the traditional “mahr” for his bride’s hand, of “14 gold coins and 50 million tomans” (equivalent to a total of €9000).
The mullah asks the bride: “Fatima, do you agree to marry Milad Jashani?”, since according to Islamic sharia bride and groom must both assent loud and clear. The bride replies: “With my parents’ permission, yes.” The groom says “Yes, I do”, and they become man and wife as their families applaud.
Video filmed August 26, 2019 in Iran’s Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province shows an 11-year-old girl marrying her cousin, who is 22.
Article 1041 of Iran’s Civil Code sets the marriage age at 13 for girls and 15 for boys – if they have their parents’ consent. But if families want to marry off a daughter who is 12 or younger – or a boy 14 or younger – they can ask a judge to declare them “intellectually mature” enough for marriage. According to official statistics, in 5.5 percent of Iranian marriages, the brides are under 15.
The footage, posted on social media on September 1 and shown on state TV, caused widespread outrage. Two days later, the public prosecutor annulled the marriage and said he was indicting the mullah and the girl’s parents for an illegal underage marriage. The families, however, told the media they will try to remarry the couple.
‘There are more child marriages than people think’
Despite concerted efforts by moderate MPs and social activists to ban child marriage by amending the law, there has been little progress. Things have been getting worse and worse since the Iranian Revolution 40 years ago. A law passed back in 1925 had set the marriage age at 18 for boys and 15 for girls. But now any age seems possible.
Social attitudes to child marriage have been changing, though. The number of child marriages is lower than in 1979. People are more educated and more aware of the consequences; women are more and more independent.
There are more child marriages than people think. While child marriage is rare and even taboo in the big cities, in rural regions marrying around 13 or 14 is not that uncommon. It’s still part of the culture. A mother who got married at 12 will want the same for her daughter. In some villages, if a girl isn’t married at 15, people will think it’s because no one wants her as a wife.
There are around 40,000 marriages a year in which at least one of the partners is under 15 – and that’s only the marriages that are officially registered. Even worse, the number of underage marriages has actually been going up in recent years, though by a small margin.
There’s a stereotype that the families who push their daughters to marry young are poor, but that’s not true. In my experience, tradition is more often the motivation than securing a payment. Child marriage is caused by a triangle of concerns: tradition, poverty and the fear that a girl will find a boyfriend.
In many underage marriages, the children do not live together at first – or have sex. They live separately for a few years, and begin “real” matrimony when the girl turns 14 or 15.
But not always. In February this year, an 11-year-old girl named Raha married a 44-year-old man in Ilam province. The marriage was not registered. She was the man’s second wife, and he forced her to have sexual intercourse with him for six months, until the first wife tipped off an Iranian NGO, telling them: “She screams every night while our husband rapes her.” A local judge annulled the marriage.
— Masih Alinejad ?️ (@AlinejadMasih) September 2, 2019
This incident, which is not uncommon in most Islamic countries, has sparked anger and outrage from people all over the world. In the video, the small girl in a vibrant local bridal gown is seen sitting next to a man in a white shirt who looks old enough to be her father. A man, presumably a Muslim cleric, is heard officiating the ceremony and asking the consent of the child bride three times, in accordance with Iranian tradition. The child passively says consents while quickly covering her face. Cheers and loud clapping follow.
So the women in the video have possibly been through the same thing and yet they let their daughters go through it instead of standing together and stopping it. It’s a horrible cycle.
— valerie camilleri (@valeriecamille4) September 2, 2019
This is not the first or the last time such a marriage will occur. This incident raised questions about the legal age of marriage in Iran for girls and boys, where thousands of child marriages are recorded every year. According to statistics released by Iran’s National Organization for Civil Registration, from March 2013 to March 2017, 1,007 girls under the age of 10 and more than 190,000 girls younger than 14 were married in Iran.
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