“Child marriage concerns 9- to 10-year-old girls, but a 13-year-old girl is not a child bride.”
This is part of the outrageous remarks made by Hassan Norouzi, deputy chair of the Judicial and Legal Committee of the mullahs’ parliament. (The state-run Aftabnews.ir – November 29, 2021)
The MP for Robat Karim had earlier confessed that he was among the forces who opened fire on protesters in the November 2019 Iran protests, ruthlessly killing at least 1,500 young women and men.
In December 2018, the judicial and legal committee of the mullahs’ parliament rejected the bill proposed to increase the legal age of marriage for girls to 16.
The regime’s failure to criminalize child marriage has led to a growing number of child marriages and child brides in Iran mainly due to rampant poverty.
The National Statistics Center of Iran announced that 9,753 young girls between 10 and 14 were married in spring 2021. (The state-run ISNA news agency – November 22, 2021)
During the same period, 45,522 girls between 15 and 19 years old were also married.
The marriages of over 9000 girl children between 10 to 14 in spring 2021 show a 32% increase compared to the same period last year.
Encouraging child marriages in Iran has led to a growing number of child mothers.
Young girls between 10 to 14 years old gave birth to 969 infants, and young women between 15 and 19 years old gave birth to 44,896 infants in spring 2021, according to the NSC.
Early marriage is one of the most evident examples of violence against women under the mullahs’ misogynistic rule.
Mohammad Reza Mahboubfar, a social harm researcher, commented on statistics from the National Statistics Center: “This is the tip of the iceberg of statistics related to early marriage. The actual number of children married is 5 to 6 times the announced number.” (The state-run ROKNA News Agency – July 25, 2021)
Ali Kazemi, a legal advisor to the clerical regime’s Judiciary, had previously acknowledged that “an average of 500,000 to 600,000 Iranian girls under the age of 14 get married every year.” (The state-run Entekhab.ir newspaper – March 4, 2019)
