Swiss NGO TdH holds roundtable on early marriage practices within jurisdictions

AMMAN – Terre des hommes Lausanne (Tdh) in Jordan, a non-governmental Swiss organisation that works globally for children’s rights and protection, on Saturday organised a roundtable discussion titled “Early Marriage Practices and provisions according to the Personal Status (Sharia) and the Civil/Criminal Jurisdictions”.

The event was facilitated by the courts’ inspector, Judge Ashraf Al Abdullah and Judge Mahmoud Abu Rumman in the technical office of the Supreme Sharia Court, according to a Tdh statement.

The roundtable discussion brought together 10 Sharia (Islamic law) judges from the courts of Irbid, Mafraq and Karak and 10 Criminal Judges from the High Supreme Criminal Court and the Court of First Instance in Karak, Irbid and Mafraq. 

The law articles and provisions related to the protection of children and minors from early marriage were discussed, as well as the extent to which the criminal verdicts “contradicts” with the personal status verdicts, read the statement.

At the end of the discussion, the following recommendations were agreed upon: The importance of sustaining periodic discussions and training sessions between the Sharia and the Civil-Criminal jurisdictions; the need for an online system to link between the Sharia courts, Civil/Criminal courts, the Family Protection and Juvenile Department and the Ministry of Social Development; and the importance of sharing and circulating the final Sharia and Criminal verdicts and determining their legal references.

The roundtable was supported as part of the ongoing “Enabling Access to Specialised Child Protection Services” project which builds on Tdh’s existing programming and capacity in Access to Justice and Child Protection to respond to the priority needs of Jordanian and Syrian children and groups exposed to or facing protection concerns, while working on strengthening child protection systems in Jordan, the statement said.

The project is funded by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs through the Jordan Humanitarian Fund, which also works to provide inclusive case management and specialised Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Services to children in Jordan.