Malaysian Muslims under 16 are allowed to marry with permission of a religious court

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The marriage of a Malaysian man to an 11-year-old Thai girl has sparked outrage in the Muslim-majority country with one activist on Sunday labelling the groom a child predator.

Malaysian Muslims below the age of 16 are allowed to marry with the permission of a religious court.

But the country’s women and families ministry said there was no record of religious authorities approving the union, which took place last month across the border in Thailand’s largely Muslim far south.

“Our officers have gone to the house and met the girl’s mother. We are waiting for more reports before deciding on the next course of action,” the deputy prime minister, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, was quoted as saying in the Sunday Star newspaper.

The 41-year-old husband could be jailed for six months if he married the girl without permission.

Malaysian activists have called for law reform to end child marriage, which they said is widespread among the country’s Muslim population.

About 16,000 Malaysian girls below the age of 15 are already married, advocates say.

“Marrying an 11-year-old girl is like the behaviour of a child predator or paedophile,” Syed Azmi Alhabshi, a child activist, said.

Alhabshi said the man was a prosperous trader and already married to two women while the girl’s parents were impoverished rubber farmers.

Muslim men are allowed to have up to four wives in Malaysia.

The United Nations Children’s Fund, Unicef, said it was “outraged” by the incident.

“It is shocking and unacceptable. Unicef ... calls on the government to make good its manifesto promise to ban child marriage,” said the agency’s Malaysia representative, Marianne Clark-Hattingh.