Richard?Lord

Gov­ern­ment says there is a crit­i­cal need for "the age of mar­riage to be aligned to the age of con­sent for sex­u­al con­duct" in T&T.This was con­tained in a state­ment from the Min­is­ter of State in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, who has spe­cif­ic re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Gen­der and Child Af­fairs.

The con­sent age of sex­u­al con­duct is 18 but cer­tain re­li­gious faiths al­low for mar­riage at age 12.

Web­ster-Roy's state­ment was made in the wake of a con­tro­ver­sial call from the pres­i­dent of the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion (IRO), Bro Har­ryper­sad-Ma­haraj, for the re­ten­tion of the rights of a Hin­du girl to be mar­ried at age 12 and a Mus­lim girl at age 14.

Gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Sanathan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha Sat­narayan Ma­haraj had al­so said the min­i­mum age for mar­riage should be re­tained.There has been a pub­lic pe­ti­tion call­ing for the law to be amend­ed to pre­vent child mar­riages in the coun­try.

Mar­riage is per­mit­ted un­der the Hin­du Mar­riage Act for a girl who is 14 and a boy who is 18; the Mus­lim Mar­riage and Di­vorce Act per­mits mar­riage for a girl at age 12 and a boy at 16; the Orisa Mar­riage Act al­lows mar­riage for a girl at age 16 and a boy at age 18 and the Mar­riage Act, Chap­ter 45:04 sets out a process and pro­ce­dure of con­sent for mar­riages of mi­nors, which gov­ern Chris­t­ian and civ­il mar­riages.

Web­ster-Roy said: "Chil­dren are en­ti­tled to the fullest ben­e­fits of child­hood and to en­joy­ment of their rights as chil­dren," adding that "the Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to the pro­tec­tion and ful­fil­ment of those rights."

She added that the child pro­tec­tion goals em­bod­ied in the Chil­dren's Act and pro­vi­sions that chil­dren un­der the age of 18 can­not con­sent to pen­e­tra­tive sex­u­al con­duct was "a col­lec­tive will to safe­guard and pro­tect our chil­dren."

She said the gap be­tween "the age for mariage and the age of con­sent to pen­e­tra­tive sex­u­al con­duct has in­creased since the procla­ma­tion of the Chil­dren's Act 2012 and must be har­monised."She said ear­ly mar­riage can ex­pose a child to:

�2 De­creased op­por­tu­ni­ty for ed­u­ca­tion.

�2 Se­ri­ous health risk, such as pre­ma­ture preg­nan­cy and sex­u­al­ly trans­mit­ted in­fec­tions.

�2 High risk due to ear­ly preg­nan­cy.

�2 In­creased like­li­hood of be­ing sub­ject­ed to gen­der-based vi­o­lence.

The Diego Mar­tin Unit­ed Church, a mem­ber of the IRO, yes­ter­day said it de­nounced state­ments to jus­ti­fy child mar­riages.It called on the Gov­ern­ment to en­sure the rights and pro­tec­tion of all our coun­try's chil­dren, over and above any re­li­gious law and prac­tice to the con­trary.

The church said sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty be­tween an adult and a mi­nor "is pae­dophil­ia and is dis­grace­ful for any gov­ern­ment to have it en­shrined in­to any law or Mar­riage Act for any per­ti­nent group or oth­er."

It added: "We be­lieve that every mea­sure should be tak­en to elim­i­nate all forms of abuse and vi­o­la­tion of hu­man dig­ni­ty, es­pe­cial­ly in re­gard to child mar­riages but al­so in­clud­ing mur­ders, forced mar­riages, hu­man traf­fick­ing, rape, in­cest and oth­er in­dig­ni­ties against hu­man per­sons.

"We hold these mat­ters to be nec­es­sary and rel­e­vant to our so­ci­ety and cen­tral to its sus­tain­abil­i­ty. "

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi said yes­ter­day he would make a com­pre­hen­sive state­ment on the con­tro­ver­sial is­sue short­ly.He said that dur­ing an in­ter­view yes­ter­day at the Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain, where he was at­tend­ing a two-day con­fer­ence on cam­paign fi­nance re­form.

There has been con­cern among cit­i­zens over the is­sue in the wake of a call from the pres­i­dent of the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion, Bro Har­ryper­sad Ma­haraj, in de­fence of the ex­ist­ing right of the po­si­tion tak­en by the IRO in de­fence of child mar­riages.

A pe­ti­tion was launched call­ing for child mar­riages to end in T&T.

Ques­tioned about the is­sue yes­ter­day, Al-Rawi said he was "look­ing at the is­sue very, very close­ly. I have done a mas­sive amount of work on it."

He said a com­pre­hen­sive state­ment would be is­sued short­ly, in­sist­ing he did not in­tend to shy away from it.