It's an injustice to NOT marry girls aged 10, says Saudi cleric

Saudi Arabia's most senior cleric has told followers it is permissible
for ten-year-old girls to marry and anyone who think they are too
young are doing the youngsters 'an injustice'.

Abdul-Azeez ibn Abdullaah Aal ash-Shaikh, the country's grand mufti,
said: 'It is wrong to say it's not permitted to marry off girls who
are 15 and younger.

'A female who is ten or 12 is marriageable and those who think she's
too young are wrong and are being unfair to her,' he said during a
Monday lecture.

Al Sheikh's comments come at a time when Saudi human rights groups
have been pushing the government to put an end to marriages involving
the very young and to define a minimum age for marriage.

Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, the Kingdom's grand mufti, prays during
the funeral of the Saudi woman and her daughter last February

In the past few months, Saudi newspapers have highlighted several
cases in which young girls were married off to much older men or very
young boys.

Though the mufti's pronouncements are respected and provide guidance,
the government is not legally bound by them.

On Sunday, the government-run Human Rights Commission condemned
marriages of minor girls, saying such marriages are an 'inhumane
violation' and rob children of their rights.

The commission's statement followed a ruling by a court in Oneiza in
central Saudi Arabia last month that dismissed a divorce petition by
the mother of an eight-year-old girl whose father married her off to a
man in his 50s.

Newspaper reports said the court argued that the mother did not have
the right to file such a case on behalf of her daughter and said that
the petition should be filed by the girl when she reaches puberty.

Responding to a question about parents who force their underage
daughters to marry, the mufti said: 'We hear a lot about the marriage
of underage girls in the media, and we should know that Islamic law
has not brought injustice to women.'

The mufti said a good upbringing will make a girl capable of carrying
out her duties as a wife and that those who say women should not marry
before the age of 25 are following a 'bad path'.

'Our mothers and before them, our grandmothers, married when they were
barely 12,' said Al Sheikh, according to the Al-Hayat newpaper.

There are no statistics to show how many marriages involving children
are performed in Saudi Arabia every year.

It is also not clear whether these unions are on the rise or whether
people are hearing about them more now because of the prevalence of
media outlets and easy access to the Internet.

Activists say the girls are given away in return for hefty dowries or
as a result of long-standing custom in which a father promises his
infant daughters and sons to cousins out of a belief that marriage
will protect them from illicit relationships.