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The trend has prompted child protection experts to warn of a surge in mental illness, suicides, teenage runaways and girls turning to prostitution as the nuptials frequently end in divorce.

While both genders are affected, statistics from the state-run civil registration organisation show the phenomenon to be more prevalent among girls. Some families are said to be marrying off their daughters to older men to pay off debts.

An Iranian NGO, the Society For Protecting The Rights of The Child, said 43,459 girls aged under 15 had married in 2009, compared with 33,383 three years previously. In 2010, 716 girls younger than 10 had wed, up from 449 the previous year, according to the organisation.

[...]

The statistics will fuel criticism that Iran's Islamic legal code allows children, especially girls, to be married at an inappropriately early age.

While Sharia law states that females can be married as young as nine, a 2002 ruling by the powerful Expediency Council laid down that girls below 13 and boys younger than 15 could only wed with their father's consent and the permission of a court.

However, critics complain that the legal standards in many socially conservative areas for allowing younger marriages are lax while a fundamentalist MP, Mohammad Ali Asfenani, has said Iran has a religious obligation to legally recognise the weddings of girls as young as nine

"As some people may not comply with our current Islamic legal system, we must regard nine as being the appropriate age for a girl to have reached puberty and qualified to get married," Mr Asfenani, chairman of the parliamentary legal and judiciary committee, told Khabar Online. "To do otherwise would be to contradict and challenge Islamic Sharia law."

melika969 wrote:Well as a girl who grew up in Iran I have to reemphasize that we don't get married at 9! I'm not going to get involved in your pointless links and arguements.

melika969 wrote:I googled it Shaf, this law had changed couple of times. Once the minimum legal age was 15 for girls and 18 for guys, then it changed to 18 for girls and 20 for guys. Based on websites it is 15 for girls and 18 for guys. I don't know how effective these laws are, as there are some illegal child marriages especially in the south of Iran. I am 28 and nobody has forced me to get married yet! LOL

shafique wrote:Focus, FD, focus. The joke is on herve's 'hidemyass' conspiracy theory that the Iranian authorities have recorded 700+ instances of these child marriages.

info-miner wrote:you'll find a difference in the practices and laws of rural areas with lower-income and less-educated populations than the practices and laws of city-dwelling, higher-income, higher-educated populations in Iran (and elsewhere!)