KUALA LUMPUR, May 7 — The problem of throwaway babies resulting from unwanted teenage pregnancies is a problem that will not be solved by legitimising underaged marriages, Kulai MP Teo Nie Ching said today.

Instead, the DAP lawmaker suggested that a proper support system, such as simplifying the adoption process, would go much further curb the social problem.

“Teen pregnancy is indeed an issue, but we need to have the support system. For example adoption in Malaysia. To legally adopt someone is so, so, so difficult, and we have so many families, who due to some reason, they don’t have children. They would like to adopt a baby, but it’s so difficult.

“If we have a proper system, we can actually help them. Those teen pregnancy [cases] if they don’t want to raise their kids themselves, they can give it to some people who love children,” she told a public forum here discussing child marriages.

Teo called for a social mind shift, starting with parents of pregnant and unwed girls who may seek to marry them off to save the family honour.

“Please stop thinking that marriage is the solution,” she said.

Teo who is also a mother has been a vocal advocate for the protection of children’s and women’s rights and the need for up-to-date data to address the issue.

At the forum titled “Child marriage: Setting our children up to fail”, she again highlighted the lack of available updated data after the year 2000, which she said hampered resolution efforts.

“We had the number in the year 2000, the population [study], but after that in the year 2010, even though they carried out the same research, they don’t collect that particular data or they don’t publish it,” she said.

“We need to have all these types of support system in place in order to solve the problem,” she said.

In Malaysia, the legal minimum age for marriage under civil law for both genders is 18, with marriages involving those under this age requiring consent from the state mentri besar or chief minister.

But Islamic laws here place the legal marrying age for Muslim boys and girls at 18 and 16, with girls aged below 16 allowed to be married off with the consent of the Shariah court.