KUCHING: Every child deserves to live a worry-free life and to be given the chance to grow at their own pace. They should not be forced to embrace unwanted obligations of being a wife and a mother.
Larissa Ping, 2018 Miss World Malaysia, said child marriage was such a flawed tradition that should be banned in this day and age and it takes the whole community to stand up for the rights of children to fight against child marriage.
She said that statistics showed that a married child will very unlikely to have an opportunity to continue pursuing their education and there are many cases of abuse towards married children.
“Thus, I firmly stand that child marriage is wrong in so many ways, and there is no reason to allow it,” she told New Sarawak Tribune recently.
The beauty queen from Kuching said the key to tackling an issue always starts from education, and every member of the society has a role to play to ensure that everyone was aware of the issue and understand the consequences (on the children and teenagers) of child marriage.
“Our children deserve to have a glimpse of their own future and they are our future too.”
“Shall this practice continue, it will only show how little we care for our children, and it could be partly our mistake for not being loud enough to fight for them.”
“Thus, let’s eradicate child marriage and speak loud and clear about it as well as to reach out to those who need help,” she stressed.
Meanwhile, Miss Malaysia World 2014, Dewi Lianan Seriestha, also shared the same sentiment that everyone in the society, has a role to play in addressing the issue of child marriage.
She opined that marriage requires a huge amount of responsibility and maturity in terms of mental health, spirituality, emotions and most of all physically in which only adults can do.
“The fact that marriage often means more than the desire to get married but at the same time is able to conceive children – hence, it is not something a child is supposed to do …,” she said.
“Children should enjoy their teenage life just like how I have had the privilege to enjoy mine – and continue to have access and opportunity to education,” she said.
She said parents also play a major role in this matter, therefore children should be always protected until they are able to make their own decision, in this case, when they are matured enough to make decisions on their own.
Dewi, who is also a singer from Sarawak said child marriages would completely violate the children’s rights and at the same time, put them at risk of abuse and domestic violence.
Apart from that, she said, studies also showed that conceiving a child below the age of 18 puts the mother and the unborn child at a higher risk of health complications.
“Since the government has no plan to ban it, perhaps, the society, including you and I should do our part in raising awareness and protecting our children from child marriage. “
“It will take a long time but a small step will get us somewhere and I hope that child marriages will be banned or stopped sooner than we hope for,” she added.
A total of 1,638 underage individuals got married in Sarawak from 2017 to 2020, where 500 of them were recorded as marrying underage according to Syariah or Islamic law. Meanwhile, 1,138 individuals were recorded marrying underage customarily (customary child marriage).
However, last month, the Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Rina Mohd Harun in a reply to Parliament said it had no plans to ban child marriage while being committed to preventing such unions.
She said there was a need to manage the issue through education, advocacy, strengthening the family institution and socioeconomic support in the community, aside from amending legal provisions.
