The Ministry of Justice is debating the issue of setting a minimum age for marriage, a senior official has said. “The ministry has adopted a clear stance on underage marriages and the issue was raised to the regulators,” Mohammed Al-Babetein, head of the Justice Ministry's marriages department, was quoted as saying in the local media. “The ministry supports setting unified regulations to deal with such practices, which will ensure the safety of young girls,” he said. Babetein said the ministry was still in discussions over what age the limit should be set at, Al-Madina newspaper reported. Last May the Shoura (Consultative) Council was reported in the local press as recommending the introduction of a minimum marriage age but there have been no concrete reports of further progress. Saudi Arabia has no minimum legal age for marriage and fathers are granted guardianship over their daughters, giving them control over whom they can marry and when. Financial considerations have in the past prompted some Saudi families to wed young daughters to much older men in return for lavish dowries. Many Saudi clerics, including Sheikh Abdulaziz Aal Al-Sheikh, the Grand Mufti, endorse the practice subject to some restrictions such as ensuring the girl has reached puberty. Cases of child marriage, including brides as young as eight-years-old, have made headlines in local and international media in recent years, drawing heavy criticism. In 2009, the Justice Minister said that there were plans to regulate the marriages of young girls after a court refused to nullify the marriage of an eight-year-old girl to a man 50 years her senior. Saudi Arabia is a signatory of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which considers those under the age of 18 as children.
