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Map and flag of Belize by Pawel Gaul from Getty Images Signature via Canva
BELMOPAN, Belize, CMC – The Belize Senate has approved legislation amending the Marriage Act, raising the legal marriage age to 18 years, and eliminating the provision allowing parents or guardians to consent to the marriage of minors.
The legislation was driven by young people who brought the issue to the House of Representatives.
The legislation received unanimous support from the Senate, including endorsements from the Leader of Government Business, Eamon Courtenay, and his counterpart on the opposition bench, Mike Peyrefitte.
“Madam President without any contradiction or condition, it is the position of the members of the Senate and indeed the government of Belize that this Bill is important,” Courtenay said.
“It is transformative, in the Belizean people’s interest, and we seek the support of the entire Senate for this modernising piece of social legislation. Madam President, we are debating a matter of constitutional importance.
“This is a human rights issue. I put it as high as that because for too long, we have allowed in our country infants to be married and infants to be married with the consent of their parents,” he added.
For his part, Peyrefitte said there have been instances when children are pressured to, in some cases, some would say practically sold off to grown men who want to marry little girls, especially because that’s the target of that criminal activities that have been taking place in terms of this consent.
“Madam President, what I know for sure, in the criminal courts in particular, you would have these men who would commit the crime of unlawful carnal knowledge, who would be engaged in sexual acts that young girls under 16, to protect from prosecution, they would go and bribe the parents or bribe the people to have these children marry them so that they can’t under the law, as their wide, testify against them in a court of law, which gets them scott free from that very egregious crime.”
Peyrefitte described the amendment as “a very good piece of legislation,” adding “I think that marriage is such as serious act and a serious responsibility that you can only be engaged in that act on your own free will”.
