COVID-19 sparks pandemic of underage marriage in Jordan

A young actress plays the role of a girl forced to marry an older man during an event organised by Amnesty International to denounce child marriage. (AFP)
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Updated 12 August 2021
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COVID-19 sparks pandemic of underage marriage in Jordan

  • Sharia courts grant nearly 8,000 marriages in 2020 involving girls under the age of 18
  • Campaigners call for a change in the law that allows exceptions for adolescents

AMMAN: Underage marriage in Jordan surged last year during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic due to increased financial hardship among poorer families, human rights groups warned.

The number of underage marriages registered in Sharia courts jumped by almost 12 percent from 2019 to 2020, according to new data from the Chief Islamic Justice Department.

While Jordanian civil law puts the legal age for marriage at 18 for both men and women, it also allows for exceptions for those aged 15 and above if a judge deems it in their best interests.

The sharp increase has led to calls for a change in the law and, in the meantime, a push to pressure judges to reduce the number of marriages granted.

Secretary-General of the Jordanian National Commission for Women Salma Al-Nims blamed the pandemic and the resulting economic burdens, and school dropout rates for the “skyrocketing” increase in underage marriages.   

“From the very beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, the commission has been warning that distance learning would deepen social problems and would increase child labor and school dropouts and, consequently, underage marriage,” Al-Nims told Arab News.

“Only yesterday, I heard that a 15-year-old girl got married and when I inquired about the reason, I learned that her family said ‘yes’ because the groom was rich. How come the judge approved it?”

Of the 67,389 marriage contracts registered in 2020 in Sharia courts, 7,964 were for girls under the age of 18. This compares to 7,224 in 2019 after the numbers had decreased from a peak of more than 10,000 in 2016.

Even more worrying is that the 2020 figure includes more than 2,000 marriages involving girls aged 15. Just 194 of the marriages included boys aged under 18.

Lawyer and human rights activist Saddam Abu Azzam described the increase in child marriage cases as “horrific” and “stomach-turning.”

“Even if it was a single case, that figure is still high,” Abu Azzam, director of the Jordanian parliament’s research center, said.   

He argued that approving marriages for girls and boys under 18 years of age is a “violation” of basic human rights, attributing the increase to Jordanian laws and a lobby of Sharia judges obstructing efforts to completely ban the marriage of adolescents.

“Those judges, unfortunately, believe that child marriage is Islamic and is an answer to several economic and social problems,” he said.

Abu Azzam called for abolishing the section of the law that says exceptions can be made for some under the age of 18.

“The problem is that Sharia judges misuse the law and expand the exceptions granted to them and the proof for that is in the increasing cases of child marriage,” he said.

Abu Azzam said that while marriage is viewed as bringing stability, prosperity, and social cohesion, the highest divorce rates in the Arab region are registered in Jordan and most are among couples less than 28 years of age. More than 90 percent of child marriages end in divorce, Abu Azzam said.

The Solidarity Is Global Institute in Jordan (SIGI), a charity that published a report on the figures, has also called for a law change.

In 2018, the group launched a national campaign to eradicate child marriage named “Nujoud” after a 10-year-old Yemeni girl who was physically and sexually abused during a two-month marriage allowed by the courts.

The Chief Islamic Justice Department said child marriage is more prominent among Jordan’s Syrian refugee population, who are “increasingly relying on child marriage as a coping mechanism.”

The department said that in 2018, one in three of the registered marriages of Syrians in Jordan involved someone under the age of 18.

According to UNICEF, family disintegration, poverty, and lack of education are considered to be some of the key factors behind an increase in the rate of child marriage among refugees.

The increase in Jordan is mirrored globally with 37,000 girls under the age of 18 married every day. According to the UN, one in three girls in the developing world are married before they reach 18 and one in nine before 15.

“If present trends continue, more than 140 million girls will be married before the age of 18 in the next decade,” the UN said in a 2019 report.

In Jordan, campaigners are at least pushing for judges to make a difference between biological maturity and social and economic maturity when they grant permission for marriages.

“Many Islamic schools define ‘competence’ as social and economic maturity rather than biological maturity,” Al-Nims said.

“Instead of limiting the exceptions granted to them, judges are unfortunately expanding them. The problem in Jordan is the fact that there is really a lack of institutionalized efforts to completely end child marriage.”


Hamas military arm releases new video of Israeli hostage in Gaza

Updated 10 sec ago
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Hamas military arm releases new video of Israeli hostage in Gaza

The man identified himself as an Israeli hostage held in Gaza

JERUSALEM: The military arm of the Palestinian militant group Hamas released a video Saturday of a man identifying himself as an Israeli hostage held in Gaza since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
In the video, whose date cannot be verified, a man addresses US President-elect Donald Trump in English and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Hebrew.


The military arm of the Palestinian militant group Hamas released a video Saturday of a man identifying himself as an Israeli hostage held in Gaza since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. (AFP/File)

Gaza rescuers say 3 aid workers killed in Israel strike

Updated 30 November 2024
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Gaza rescuers say 3 aid workers killed in Israel strike

  • The agency said the aid workers killed were Palestinian employees of World Central Kitchen
  • The US aid group did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment

GAZA: Gaza’s civil defense agency said three aid workers were killed in an Israeli air strike in the Hamas-run territory on Saturday but the Israeli army said it killed a “terrorist.”
The agency said the aid workers killed were Palestinian employees of World Central Kitchen. The US aid group did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment.
The Israeli army said it had “struck a vehicle with a terrorist that took part in the murderous October 7 massacre,” referring to militant group Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel last year.
“The claim that the terrorist was simultaneously a WCK worker is being examined,” it added in a statement.
Civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the bodies of “at least five dead were transported (to hospital), including (those of) the three employees of World Central Kitchen.”
“All three men worked for WCK and they were hit while driving in a WCK jeep in Khan Yunis,” Bassal said, adding that the vehicle had been “marked with its logo clearly visible.”
The Israeli army insisted its strike in the main southern city hit “a civilian unmarked vehicle and its movement on the route was not coordinated for transporting of aid.”
In April, an Israeli air strike killed seven WCK staff — an Australian, three Britons, a North American, a Palestinian and a Pole.
Israel said it had been targeting a “Hamas gunman” in that strike but the military admitted a series of “grave mistakes” and violations of its own rules of engagement.
The October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,207 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed 44,382 people in Gaza, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.


Several wounded in two Israeli strikes in south Lebanon, health ministry says

Updated 30 November 2024
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Several wounded in two Israeli strikes in south Lebanon, health ministry says

  • Later on Saturday, another person was injured in a separate Israeli strike on Al Bisariya
  • The Israeli military said it had attacked a Hezbollah facility

CAIRO: An Israeli strike on a car wounded three people, including a seven-year-old child, on Saturday in the south Lebanon village of Majdal Zoun, the Lebanese Health Ministry said in a statement.
Later on Saturday, another person was injured in a separate Israeli strike on Al Bisariya, which lies near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, the ministry said.
The Israeli military said it had attacked a Hezbollah facility in Sidon that housed rocket launchers for the armed group.
It added that it had also hit a vehicle in southern Lebanon loaded with rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and military equipment as part of its actions against ceasefire violations.
A truce came into effect on Wednesday, but both sides have accused each other of breaching a ceasefire that aims to halt over a year of fighting.


West faces ‘reckoning’ over Middle East radicalization: UK spy chief

Updated 30 November 2024
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West faces ‘reckoning’ over Middle East radicalization: UK spy chief

  • MI6 head Richard Moore cites ‘terrible loss of innocent life’
  • ‘In 37 years in the intelligence profession, I’ve never seen the world in a more dangerous state’

LONDON: The West has “yet to have a full reckoning with the radicalizing impact of the fighting, the terrible loss of innocent life in the Middle East and the horrors of Oct. 7,” the head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service MI6 has warned.

Richard Moore made the comments in a speech delivered to the British Embassy in Paris, and was joined by his French counterpart Nicolas Lerner.

Moore said: “In 37 years in the intelligence profession, I’ve never seen the world in a more dangerous state. And the impact on Europe, our shared European home, could hardly be more serious.”

Daesh is expanding its reach and staging deadly attacks in Iran and Russia despite suffering significant territorial setbacks, he added, warning that “the menace of terrorism has not gone away.”

In October last year, Ken McCallum, the head of Britain’s domestic intelligence service MI5, said his agency was monitoring for increased terror risks in the UK due to the Gaza war. More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in over a year of fighting.

In Lebanon, a 60-day truce agreed this week between Hezbollah and Israel brought an end to a conflict that has killed thousands of Lebanese civilians.


Israel military strikes kill 32 Palestinians in Gaza, medics say

Updated 30 November 2024
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Israel military strikes kill 32 Palestinians in Gaza, medics say

  • Among the 32 killed, at least seven died in an Israeli strike on a house in central Gaza City

The Israeli military said it killed a Palestinian it accused of involvement in Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel in a vehicle strike in Gaza, and is investigating claims that the individual was an employee of aid group World Central Kitchen.
At least 32 Palestinians were killed in Israeli military strikes across Gaza overnight and into Saturday, with most casualties reported in northern areas, medics told Reuters.
Later on Saturday medics said seven people were killed when an Israeli air strike targeted a vehicle near a gathering of Palestinians receiving aid in the southern area of Khan Younis south of the enclave.
According to residents and a Hamas source, the vehicle targeted near a crowd receiving flour belonged to security personnel responsible for overseeing the delivery of aid shipments into Gaza.
Among the 32 killed, at least seven died in an Israeli strike on a house in central Gaza City, according to a statement from the Gaza Civil Defense and the official Palestinian news agency WAFA early on Saturday.
The Gaza Civil Defense also reported that one of its officers was killed in attacks in northern Gaza’s Jabalia, bringing the total number of civil defense workers killed since October 7, 2023, to 88.
Earlier on Saturday, WAFA reported that three employees of the World Central Kitchen, a US-based, non-governmental humanitarian agency, were killed when a civilian vehicle was targeted in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
The World Central Kitchen has not yet commented on the incident.