Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Bill [HL]

Baroness Uddin Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 21st October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, each year, globally, 15 million girls are married under the age of 18. This all too frequently signals the end of their education, it risks early pregnancy and childbirth and it certainly seriously curtails their personal development and potential life chances. Child marriage looks the same no matter where in the world it happens and in the UK, like elsewhere, it perpetuates cycles of poverty, oppression and inequality. A change in the law would provide real protection for our children and empower them to make their own choices when they are physically and emotionally mature enough to do so, so I support my noble friend. I should also say that I am pleased to serve as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health.

It is time that we put our own house in order. We have been courageous in our international development ambitions and Britain often calls other countries to account for falling behind on theirs. I do not have the figures to hand, but many of our friends around the world are making efforts to ensure that the age of marriage is 18, although I acknowledge that in many ways this may only be emblematic. This was the very subject of a recent European Parliamentary Forum discussion to which Holly Lynch MP and I contributed. It seems that despite good laws being in place, in many countries of Africa, Asia and the Middle East early marriages continue to blight women’s lives. We often speak of women’s education and participation in the labour force being a catalyst for gender advances; however it seems that despite women experiencing levels of equity at university level and participating in the labour force, there remain vast swathes of women who continue to suffer from early marriage.

Our banal imagination can run away with the picture of some remote villages in India, Africa, Bangladesh and Pakistan practising early marriage, but the truth is that we cannot leave room for complacency: we have early marriage written into our laws. While there may be many 16 and 17 year-olds here in the UK who feel they are ready and mature enough to enter into marriage, by our very own law these adolescents are still children until they reach the age of 18. The reality is that having a parental consent clause not only sanctions children to make lifelong, adult decisions while they are still children, it also, sadly, continues to aid practices such as forced marriage in many communities across the UK. While I note significant attitudinal changes in my own area of Tower Hamlets to forced marriage, as a chair of the 1998 task force on forced marriage I am not content with the numbers of reports still being dealt with. Some 40% of calls received by the helpline of the Government’s Forced Marriage Unit concerned minors and 15% concerned children under the age of 15. Our current law on marriage is putting children at risk of being married too early. This is not a risk the Government should be willing to take.

Noble Lords who are wavering in support of the Bill should take a moment to reflect on why it is important to have laws that set a minimum age of marriage. We know that all Governments responsible for the well-being and safeguarding of children have clear and consistent legislation that establishes 18 as the minimum age of marriage, with no exception for parental or judicial consent. Setting the minimum age of marriage at 18 provides an objective rather than a subjective standard of maturity, which protects a child from being married when they are not physically, mentally or emotionally ready. It is also an important step towards ensuring that all individuals have free and full consent about if, when and whom they marry.

More notably, our laws also set an example to the rest of the world. They show how serious we are about practising what we preach. In this case it could be a powerful message of solidarity to many Governments in the world who are also facing societal attitudes and barriers to ending child, early and forced marriage. We have a duty to abide by the human rights and development standards that we have signed up to and are keen to advocate across the developing world and emerging economies. The Department for International Development recently invested £36 million in a global programme to accelerate action to end child marriage in 12 countries around the world. Sadly, these countries include Bangladesh, which has the second-highest number of child brides in the world at just under 4 million. In 2014, the Bangladeshi Government drew a comparison with our minimum age of marriage legislation, using it as an example of why 16 is a favourable age and citing the difficulties that they were facing in enforcing Bangladesh’s legal age of marriage—currently 18, although there is pressure to lower it to 16. We can be a leader only if we lead without any burden of unattended baggage of our own.

I hope very much to see this Bill progress. This is a good opportunity to mention the immensely important campaign on the registration of marriage. If the Bill progresses, I hope that my noble friend and the Minister will consider an amendment to ensure the protection of thousands of women in the UK who are getting married in a religious ceremony and not registering their civil marriage, which leaves many young women unprotected and without recourse to law. The campaign is ably led by Aina Khan, to whom I pay tribute.

On a personal note, I got married at 16, following my mum, who also got married at 16. She fell in love with her husband and married in 1958, causing much contention in our family because her sister had got married well after her education and became the first woman principal in a women’s college. There was utter disgust in my family, but I followed suit in 1976. My mother got divorced but I am still married. Sadly, my daughter never listened to me and she married at what I consider the still immature age of 23. I am sure she will berate me for saying this. It is not necessarily a pattern but I often think about whether I felt I had permission because my mother had married at 16. I hope we do not send the message out that people should get married at 16. I am not a hypocrite. It comes from the experience of 40 years’ labouring at marriage to say that children should be given as much chance as possible to have a life before they marry. I disagree with my noble friend on one point: once you enter marriage, it should not be the be-all and end-all. Although there are emotional and family pressures when a marriage comes to an end, we should not indicate to women that they cannot get out of a bad marriage.

As a leading, progressive and a much-respected donor country in global development efforts, the UK is already at the forefront of setting the agenda for gender empowerment. Therefore, we must set an example to end early marriage worldwide and meet international human rights standards. Critically, this must begin at home in the UK.