Provide options to tackle child marriages in Sabah

 By Olivia Miwil - August 9, 2020 @ 4:46pm

PACOS TRUST executive director Anne Lasimbang (left) and former Assistant State Laws and Native Affairs minister Jannie Lasimbang during the press conference of World's Indigeneous Day celebration here. - NSTP/ OLIVIA MIWIL

PENAMPANG: More options should be provided to young out-of-wedlock mothers to tackle child marriages in Sabah.

Former Assistant state Laws and Native Affairs minister Jannie Lasimbang said there was a need to break away from social norms of marrying young women who got pregnant out-of-wedlock.

"There are options for them (the young mother) either giving away their baby for adoption or becoming single mothers.

"There is nothing wrong in being a single mother nowadays and the child can still carry the father's name despite not being married," she said in at a press conference after a two-hour webinar discussing about child marriage issues in conjunction with World Indigenous People's Day here.

Present was a community-based non governmental organisation PACOS Trust executive director Anne Lasimbang.

Jannie said that while such options are available, it "takes a village" to take a pragmatic approach in preventing child marriages from happening in the state.

Those measures include giving support towards underprivileged families including single mothers, providing sexual education for the children and awareness for the community and its leaders.

The Sabah government had also last year agreed to set the minimum marriage age at 18 and the moves to amend laws were underway.

"Although there are religious issues about pregnant women becoming single mothers or giving away their children for adoption, it is a way to break the vicious cycle of poverty among the indigenous people for being parents at a very young age.

"Apart from not being ready for marriage, those young girls are also deprived of education and career opportunities," she said, adding that a study by PACOS indicated that the youngest girl that got married was at the age of 12-years-old.

The ongoing study, which had recently surveyed 155 underage brides from Tenom, Nabawan, Kota Marudu, Pitas and Beluran, showed that more than half of them only studied up to Primary 6 with their household having an average monthly income of RM1,000.

Only 5 of those respondents went on to pursue their studies.