Egyptian lawmakers have sought to expedite legislative measures to criminalize child marriage and tighten penalties to deter violators.
MP Enas Abdel Halim said she finished preparing a bill to amend some provisions of the Penal Code to increase the punishment for underage marriage.
The bill, which she will submit to parliament, sets the appropriate age for girls to marry. She added that the constitution criminalizes marriage of girls under the age of 18.
Even though the marriage of minors violates the constitution, laws and international treaties, there is no punishment for those who are married to minors or facilitated such a union, she remarked.
Therefore, “the proposed amendments includes imposing stricter penalties for this act to limit and address the phenomenon, which threatens national security.”
Earlier this week, President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi vowed to speed up efforts to bar child marriage in the country.
During an event marking Mother’s Day on Sunday, he warned of the growing phenomenon and stressed that girls under 12 should not be expected to be responsible for household chores and raising a family.
The parliament must urgently take the necessary measures to pass the child marriage restraint bill as a separate law that stipulates explicitly the legal age of marriage, he stressed.
Sisi cited data by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) that revealed that many girls have been married by the age of 12.
According to the Agency’s 2019 statistics on early marriage, 117,220 Egyptians were married under the age of 18.
