Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 01-08-2019
The SA Law Reform Commission says it is seeking consistency and wants all legislation to stipulate that boys and girls can enter into a marriage at 18-years-old.
This comes after calls for the country to scrap legislation that stipulates that girls aged 15 can enter into marriage with permission of the Home Affairs minister.
The same legislation, in the Marriage Act, places the age in which boys can marry at 18.
Marriages were currently registered under three pieces of legislation, the Marriage Act of 1961, Recognition of Customary Marriages Act of 1998 and the Civil Union Act of 2006.
The commission’s Pierre van Wyk says they are investigating whether marriages in the country should be registered under a single statute.
“Why we are looking particularly at age is there are international instruments like the African Charter that sets the minimum age at 18 and there are other instruments too. So therefore there needs to be uniformity.”
Data from Stats South Africa released in 2017 revealed that 91000 girls between the ages of 12 and 17 were married, divorced, separated or widowed.
Listen to the interview with Pierre van Wyk
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