KOTA KINABALU, July 5 — Sabah school counsellors will be equipped in August this year with a module to deter child marriages, said state Health and People’s Well Being Minister Stephen Wong.

He said it was drafted by the Sabah Women’s Advisory Council and would be introduced with the help of the Education Department as a guide for school counsellors when spreading awareness on the subject and the harmfulness of child marriage.

“The module will be used by any facilitator with the aim of decreasing or avoiding more underage girls getting married,” he told the state legislative assembly sitting today.

Wong said he supports Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail’s aim to increase the minimum marriage age from 16 to 18.

He said he agreed with Dr Wan Azizah, who is also women, family and community development minister, that laws should be amended to make it illegal for any girl or boy to get married before they turned 18.

“My ministry agrees completely with the statement by the women, family and community development minister to amend Islamic family and civil law and set the minimum age at 18 for girls in the country,” he said.

His ministry was formerly known as the Community Development and Consumer Affairs Ministry but was changed when Pakatan Harapan (PH) took over Putrajaya after the May 9 polls.

Child marriages are in the spotlight again after it was reported that a 41-year-old imam from Gua Musang, Kelantan took an 11-year-old Thai girl as his third wife.

Dr Wan Azizah had proposed that the minimum age of marriage for girls in the country be increased during the coming Parliament sitting.

The current minimum age of marriage is 16 for Muslim girls and 18 for Muslim boys, with exceptions made to marry at a much younger age as long as consent is obtained from the Islamic courts.

For non-Muslims, girls can be married as early as 16 provided they or their parents have the permission of the state chief minister.

In Sabah, the incidence of young marriages is rampant in rural areas where there are poor socio-economic conditions. It is sometimes a practice to betroth young children in some cultures in Sabah.