Marriage To Eight Year Old Ruled Legal

A judge in Saudi Arabia has ruled for the second time that the arranged marriage of a 47 year old man to an eight year old girl is perfectly legal.

The story came to light last December when it emerged that a man from the Saudi city of Onaiza sold off his eight year old daughter in an arranged marriage to a friend of his in order to pay off a debt. The girl’s mother, who is divorced from the father fought to have the marriage annulled but the judge Sheikh Habib Al-Habib ruled that as the mother was divorced from the father she was no longer the legal guardian and couldn’t represent her in court.

The mother appealed against the ruling, but the case was merely passed back to Sheikh Habib Al-Habib and this weekend he made the exact same ruling.

In the original court appearance Sheikh Habib Al-Habib ruled in favour of the 47 year old saying that he must sign a pledge that he won’t have sexual intercourse with the girl until she reaches puberty. The judge also stated that when the girl reaches puberty she can file for divorce, however critics point out that for a girl that age to be divorced it would seriously diminish her future prospects due to being labeled “used goods”.

One of Saudi’s chief cleric’s Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh recently gave this statement concerning child marriage:

“It is incorrect to say that it’s not permitted to marry off girls who are 15 and younger,” said the grand mufti “A girl aged 10 or 12 can be married. Those who think she’s too young are wrong, and they are being unfair to her.”

“We hear a lot in the media about the marriage of underage girls,” he told reporters. “We should know that sharia law has not brought injustice to women.”

The Saudi marriage officiant Dr. Ahmad al-Mu’bi said in a Lebanese TV interview last year that it’s acceptable to marry a child bride as young as one year old.

“there is no minimal age for entering marriage.” he said “You can have a marriage contract even with a 1-year-old girl, not to mention a girl of 9, 7 or 8,”

“But is the girl ready for sex or not?” he continued. “What is the appropriate age for sex for the first time? This varies according to environment and tradition,”

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