Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA) Muhamad Ishtayeh has pledged to launch a campaign against the phenomenon of under-age marriages in the PA.
In a recent meeting with members of the Human Rights Watch (HRW), Ishtayeh pledged to promote the “Family Defense Law,” which sets the earliest legal age for marriage at 18.
He also vowed to ensure that a segment of government jobs are held for women.
The current law in the PA sets the lowest age for marriage at 15 for females and 16 for males. However, marriage at the age of 14 and even 13 is fairly prevalent in various areas, and international organizations have criticized the PA for this. Similarly, marriage within the family is also quite common.
The issue of under-aged marriage is one which has occupied the public discourse in the PA in recent years.
Research into the issue shows that some of the causes for marriage at a young age are the dropout rate from school, a result of the precarious financial situation in the PA, as well as the PA’s mostly religious and traditional society and culture, which encourages marriage at a young age.
However, the number of young-age marriages has dropped significantly. The PA’s Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) reported that in 1997, 30% were married at an age under 18, and today the number has dropped to 11%.
About half of the marriages are decided upon by the family, and primarily the parents.
Half of the females who are married off at a young age marry their cousins, and 99% of them marry a neighbor or a relative. Only a fraction marries someone they met in school or at work.
This phenomenon has generated severe social issues within the PA. Some 14% of those who were married between the ages of 14 and 17 were eventually divorced, and 44% of those married between the ages of 18 to 24 were similarly divorced.