Saudi officials block children's marriages

MARRIAGE officials in Saudi Arabia have refused to marry three 13-year-old girls, amid an outcry by rights activists over child marriages.Last week marriage officials told the parents of three girls they were too young, citing a recent instruction by the head of the Dammam regional courts, Sheikh Abdulrahman al-Raqib, Al-Watan newspaper reported.When the father of one then sought permission from Raqib, he was told to wait until she was 15. Saudi Arabia has no law setting a minimum age for marriage for either gender, leading to occasional cases in which girls are married off by their parents before reaching their teens, some even younger than age 10. Saudi human rights activists have sought to have a law banning the practice of child marriage and setting a minimum age of 18, but some powerful religious officials have resisted. In January, the grand mufti, Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, said girls as young as 10 may be married, and he lashed out at critics. "If a girl exceeds 10 or 12, then she is eligible for marriage, and whoever thinks she is too young, then he or she is wrong and has done her an injustice," he said.
By AFP
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25089806-23109,00.html
As in the days of Noah...