A new law on child marriage from the Ministry of Justice which currently has the issue under study may set the legal age of marriage at 18 while also imposing greater restrictions on persons permitted to authorize the marriage of minors. President of the Islamic Courts in Al-Khobar Saleh Al-Sheikh said that the new law would be announced soon and would ban the “ma'dhoun”, the person conducting marriage procedures, from signing marriage contracts for young girls, even upon the insistence of their guardians, without consulting the judiciary. Human rights groups are also keen to involve themselves in the process. Muflih Al-Qahtani, President of the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), said the organization was resolved to officially address the Ministry of Justice over the issue and obtain information on the studies being conducted by the ministry. Justice minister Mohammed Al-Issa recently said that a new law would be announced upon the completion of the study to tackle the health and psychological damage done to young girls forced into marriage or betrothed to husbands of considerably higher age. Movements from the ministry come in the context of two girls, 14-year-old Sheikha and 11-year-old Ubeir, both of whom were forced into marriage to much older men, along with unofficial estimates that believe some 3,000 Saudi girls have been married by their guardians to men of up to 25 years their senior. Okaz newspaper reported on May 1 the case of a girl in Uneiza whose mother went to court and obtained a marriage annulment for her daughter. The girl's husband, a man in his fifties, reportedly put up prolonged arguments maintaining his right to keep her as his wife, but the dispute was resolved with a “friendly resolution”. The case required a different judge in place of the official who initially heard it, and a previous judge had ruled that the case be postponed until the girl reached puberty. The girl was reportedly the third wife of the man, who was still living with his other two wives, and the divorce agreement reportedly stipulated that no information on the case be revealed to the media and that the lawyer involved refrain from speaking to the media. Okaz also reported on July 22 of 2008 the marriage of two Jizani children, the groom 12 and the bride 11 in years, with Al-Qahtani of the NSHR saying at the time that the case required sheikhs, psychologists and sociologists to look into the issue and put rules in place taking into account agreements to which the Kingdom is a signatory. The report noted that the first article of the Child Rights Agreement signed by the Kingdom in 1995 defines a child as any person under the age of 18. Lawyer Adnan Al-Zahrani was quoted as saying in the report that guardians – the fathers - were permitted to marry off a minor of either sex and could contract marriage for their daughters even at the age of one. Al-Zahrani said that when girls reached the age of puberty they were permitted to choose whether to accept or reject a marriage contract.
