UK to scrap loophole allowing child marriage ‘by back door’, minimum age to be raised

Ahead of the introduction of a bill raising the minimum age of marriage in the UK to 18, lawmakers said that Britain must scrap a legal loophole allowing child marriage “by the back door”. According to BBC, the lawmakers said that the current law, which allows marriages at 16 with parental consent, sabotaged girls’ futures and condoned child abuse. They added that the loophole also undermines Britain’s global efforts to end child marriage in other countries. 

Currently, 16 and 17-year-olds in England, Wales and Northern Ireland can marry with parental consent. However, campaigners have said that most girls who marry under 18 are pressured into it by their families. They said that parent consent often amounts to coercion and teenage girls are regularly married off to older men they have never met. The campaigners said that raising the minimum age would empower them to say no. 

Conservative MP Sajid Javid has drafted a bill to end the rule that allows 16 and 17-year-olds to marry with their parent’s permission. While speaking to the media outlet, Javid said that “child marriage is child abuse” and added that research showed most of these unions were “coerced or forced” for cultural and religious reasons. He even went on to argue that under 18s who marry were more likely to suffer domestic or sexual violence, be socially isolated, and drop out of education, even when marriages are not forced.

UK govt supports raising legal marriage age 

Javid also said that raising the legal age to marry remained “one glaring thing that stands out” in the battle to stop forced marriages. Parliamentarian Pauline Latham, one of the bill’s sponsors, said the current law permitted child marriage “by the back door”. Now, like all such bills, it will need the support of ministers, who control the parliamentary timetable, to stand a chance of being passed. 

Javid has said that Justice Secretary Robert Buckland shares his determination to end child marriage. The former chancellor said that Buckland is working “very constructively” with him. A ministry of Justice spokesperson, in a separate statement, said that the government supports raising the legal age for marriage to protect vulnerable children and will outline its next steps in due course.

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