The Senate has passed an amendment to the Marriage Bill moving the minimum age for marriage from 15 to 18 in Antigua & Barbuda.
Leader of Government Business in the Senate, Senator Mary-Claire Hurst said at 15 education and not marriage should be the focus.
Under the Marriage Act 1994, parties aged 15 to 18 may marry with the consent of their parents.
“You cannot be employed until you are 16 but you can get married at 15. You cannot give sexual consent [until you are 16] but you can get married at 15. There is something about it that we needed to address and this is the situation in Antigua and Barbuda,” Hurst said.
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This is a long overdue move in the right direction. Congratulations to the People’s Government.
When they going to raise the age of consent from 16 to 18?
That don’t need to be change
U sound like an idiot. Why is it that a girl must wait till she is 18 to be considerd an adult, obtain a driver’s license or vote but at 16 say yes to having sex ignorance at its best
This piece of act (age of consent) will never change because some of the grown hard back men in our society love eat baby food.
There are too much women in the upper house of senate and they should have rejected this amended age of marriage act by sending it back to the lower house until they adjusted the age of consent by including it as part of this act.
Move in the right direction.
@SMDH, Great question! Remember some a dem man out dey nah mind the 16 year age of consent. Dem inna high power too.
If any of dem are “inna high power” we need to expose them and run them outta town (after they do their rime at 1735). Nasty old perverts!
See how easy it is to change and make laws.
Time to fix the constitution.
Mel, what you want to change in the Constitution?
Putting the cart before the horse. Do you know any 15 year old who got married in Antigua? I know of only one case in the last 50+ years.
The Age of Marriage CANNOT be higher than the Age of Consent.
I am patiently awaiting a reaction from the churches.
Our women in parliament are there to help set laws and fight for our young girls especially across this nation of Antigua and Barbuda rights not to enriching themselves like the male parliamentarians. Women in parliament please set laws too protect our young girls from them hard back grown men in society.
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