Loan Requests for Child Marriage ’90 Times Higher’ in Iran
Reports indicate that alongside increases in marriage loan amounts in Iran, the number of applicants for these loans to marry individuals under 15 years old has increased “90-fold” over the past two years.
Tayebeh Siavoshi, a member of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, stated on Sunday, December 30th, in an interview with ILNA news agency regarding the rise in child marriage due to a 60-million-toman marriage loan that the number of applicants for marriage loans for individuals under 15 years old in the first five months of this year compared to 2017 has increased approximately 90-fold, and the number of such marriages has also increased significantly.
She stated that based on statistics from the Ministry of Sports and Youth obtained from the Central Bank, the number of applicants under 15 years old for marriage loans in 2018, when the marriage loan increased to 30 million tomans, was approximately 70 times higher compared to the previous year, 2017.
ILNA reports that in some remote and mostly impoverished areas of the country, the increase in marriage loans up to 60 million tomans has caused families with limited financial means to marry off their daughters under fifteen to a man in order to receive their 30-million-toman share of this loan.
Last year, a bill prohibiting marriage with children was rejected in the judicial committee of the Islamic Consultative Assembly.
According to Islamic religious law, the age of puberty is 9 years for girls and 15 years for boys.
Ms. Siavoshi states that given the worsening economic conditions in the past and current year, the increase in marriage loans has led to the spread of child marriage, and we will likely witness a significant increase in the number of applicants under 15 years old for this loan by the end of the year compared to 2017.
In May of this year, the Islamic Consultative Assembly’s Research Center announced that approximately 23 to 40 percent of Iran’s population fell below the poverty line in 2018.
In recent years, female representatives in parliament have attempted to change the age of marriage in Iran’s laws, but faced resistance from other representatives and clergy.
In March of this year, local authorities in Iran announced that in the past year, 1,400 girls under 14 years old were married in Zanjan Province and 1,054 girls under 14 years old in North Khorasan Province.
In June, a judicial official from Hamadan stated that in 2018, 1,596 marriages of girls under 15 years old were registered in the province, 60 of which resulted in divorce.
Previously, Mohammad Mehdi Tandgoyan, Deputy Minister of Youth Affairs at the Ministry of Sports, had reported a “four-fold increase” in child marriage in some parts of Iran following the increase in marriage loan amounts.
While criticizing the increase in marriage loan amounts, he stated that this “does not help increase the marriage rate in the country, but may instead create conditions for other problems and harms.”
Iran’s population policies in recent years have undergone changes with the emphasis of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei on increasing Iran’s population to 150 million.
Source: Radio Farda
