Calling the statement “unacceptable” and “breathtakingly irresponsible”, Latheefa, who heads rights group Lawyers for Liberty (LFL), said it was a fundamental principle that children were incapable of consenting to marriage.
“Criminal law regards consensual sex with any girl below 16 as rape precisely because a child is not capable of consent,” she said in a statement today.
She added that Wan Azizah, who is also deputy prime minister, appeared to have overlooked the “pressure, persuasion or coercion the child may have been subjected to by the perpetrator and other persons over the period of several months prior to the marriage”.
She also accused Wan Azizah of drawing “slapdash conclusions” from a “one-day investigation by some random officials from the women’s ministry”.
“The 15-year-old victim needs urgent care, counselling and support. A public statement from the minister whitewashing the ‘marriage’ does not help the child at all.”
News of the girl’s marriage which took place in July with the consent of a shariah court came three months after the uproar caused by another underage marriage, in which a 41-year-old rubber tapper took an 11-year-old girl as his third wife.
Abdul Karim Che Abdul Hamid said he had received the blessings of the girls’ parents and would formalise the marriage by applying for a marriage certificate when his “wife” turned 16, the marital age allowed by Malaysian shariah laws.
Until then, he said, the girl would live with her parents.
The girl was eventually sent back to her birth country of Thailand where she is said to be undergoing mental health counselling due to the intense level of attention sparked by her marriage.
Wan Azizah said in July that the government would amend the laws to raise the marriageable age for girls from 16 to 18.
On the most recent case, she said Putrajaya was looking into the marriage but that the government must abide by the states’ jurisdiction in shariah matters.
The girl, who became the man’s second wife, had reportedly said that she had no hesitation about marrying him despite only knowing him for a few months.
“The most important thing is that I’m happy with my husband, and I will try to make him happy for the rest of my life,” she was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times.
Given Wan Azizah’s statement that the 15-year-old girl had consented to the marriage, Latheefa asked what would happen next.
“Will there be any further action? Or will the child be left to rot away in this ‘marriage’, her future bleak and devastated?
“It is painfully obvious that the deputy prime minister is once again trying to wash her hands of another ‘messy’ child bride case.”
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