The Shakti Community Council has created a major controversy among Sikhs and Muslims in New Zealand by alleging that their places of worship are being used for child marriages and that many underage persons were being forced into matrimony, apparently for financial or other reasons.
The veracity of this and other allegations that appeared in a weekly mainstream newspaper from Auckland last week has not been verified. To that extent, the report may be contested; but more importantly, we believe that the Shakti Community Council, predominantly run by people of Sub-Continent origin, should have provided an opportunity for the Sikh and Muslim community leaders to explain if the allegations were true.
In a submission made to Parliament’s Select Committee in December 2009, Auckland based Waves Trust Coordinator Debbie Hager said that there were many reasons why New Zealand had an age limit for marriage. She said forced marriages violated the human rights of young women and compromised their potential development and wellbeing.
Quoting the ‘Health Statistics Survey (2007)’ of the ‘National Statistic Journal,’ she said, “Babies born to mothers aged under 20 have higher infant mortality rates than those born to older mothers. There is also a higher risk of maternal mortality for very young mothers.”
We would not argue against any of the above, except to say that teenage pregnancy is more prevalent in New Zealand than anywhere else in the world and that its occurrence has nothing to do with marriage; in fact, all teenage pregnancies (mostly Non-Indian) occur long before marriage.
The Shakti Community Council has singled out the Sikh and Muslim communities, accusing them of forcing underage girls and boys (mostly the former). We are not convinced if this could even be possible, for, even in India, such marriages are punishable by law and in New Zealand, marriages that not registered with the Registrar for Birth Death and Marriages are not deemed to have occurred. If such marriages were conducted to beat the immigration system, they would not work, as explained elsewhere in this issue.
It also goes beyond us to understand why the Shakti Community Council, if it stands for community welfare and social responsibility, did not alert the law enforcing authorities if it had proof that such practices were being followed in New Zealand, leave alone speaking to the elders in the communities concerned. To allow an unhealthy practice to be followed, it is true, would not befit its image.
