By Staff Writer
Hargeisa, October 19, 2018. Somalia’s clerical body is against a family bill that its parliament plans to pass, saying it is against Sharia laws.
The bill, known as Sexual Act bill, recommends for instance, that the legal age that will determine maturity and eligibility for Somali girls to get married be set at 18 years. According to this bill, if a man marries a woman younger than 18 years, he has committed an offence and is liable to a minimum of 10 to 15 years jail term. At a press conference held by Muslim clerics, they said the bill goes against Islam and thus violates the law. The clerics and Islamic scholars believe that this bill goes against Islam, which has set the age of maturity and eligibility to marriage for girls at 15 years. This clause has however received backing from the Ministry of Women, as well as human rights groups.
Like other Muslim countries, the legal age for marriage for Somali girls begins at 15 years, and in rural areas, girls younger than 15 years are still married off. This has been frowned upon by non-Islamic countries, terming it as child marriage. The bill also recommends punishment for those who use force on his or her partner into sexual relations, whether they are cohabiting or in a legal marriage. The clerics are also against this, as domestic rape among those that are married in Somalia is unimaginable.
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