Why the delay? House urged to pass bill banning child marriage

By Billy Begas

Deputy Speaker Bernadette Herrera on Monday urged the House of Representatives to pass the measure banning child marriage in the country.

Herrera said the Senate has approved on third and final reading Senate Bill 1373 declaring child marriage illegal last November, while its counterpart House Bill 1486 in the lower chamber remains pending at the committee level.

“Now is the time for us to break the chain of child marriage because each child, a girl-child especially, has the right to dream, and as legislators, it is our responsibility to pass laws that would help them fulfill their dreams,” Herrera said.

The measure was originally referred to the House Committee on Justice but was later transferred to the House Committee on Women and Gender Equality, which is scheduled to conduct its first hearing on the matter on May 19.

The measure seeks to ensure that all Filipino children will have the opportunity to grow and develop to their full potential, and to eventually decide when and with whom to marry, Herrera added.

Herrera branded child, early, arranged or forced marriage as “a form of child abuse.”

“Ito ay hindi panghihimasok sa paniniwala ng iba ngunit isang matinding paalala na ang mga bata ay higit sa lahat dapat mahalin, alagaan at ilayo sa anumang pang-aabuso,” Herrera explained.

She said children or young adults who are forced into marriage because of a circumstance that is not acceptable to society or to help a family get out of poverty will make them feel trapped inside a marriage they never wanted to be in to begin with.

“Eventually it will catch up to them and would want to break free from that marriage and it is the children who are born out of that marriage who will suffer,” she pointed out. “Let them be free to choose who they want to marry, otherwise they will long for that and the marriage will fail because of that absence of freedom to choose for themselves who they want to spend the rest of their life with.”

Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)