Senate declared child marriages a public crime by approving Senate Bill No. 1373 on November 9, 2020.

This bill seeks to prohibit and declare child marriage as illegal in the country.

The Population Commission (POPCOM) in Region VI supports the measure.

Sen. Risa Honteveros, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations, and Gender Equality and the author of the bill, said the bill aims to further promote the empowerment of women and girls by abolishing unequal structures and practices that support discrimination and inequality against women and children.

Hontiveros also sponsored SB 1888 or the Prevention of Adolescent Pregnancy Act in 2018. However, it was not passed into law.

Some of the salient provisions of SB 1373 are:

(1) Any person who causes, fixes, facilitates or arranges a child marriage shall be fined P40,000 or suffer the penalty of prision mayor in its minimum period;

(2) Should the perpetrator be an ascendant, step parent or guardian of the minor, the penalty imposed shall be prision mayor in its maximum period and a fine of not less than P50,000 and the loss of parental authority over the minor; and

(3) Any person who performs or officiates the formal rites of child shall suffer the penalty of prision mayor in its medium period and a fine of not less than P40,000 in addition to perpetual disqualification from office if he or she is a public officer.

Hontiveros said that the Philippines has an estimated 726,000 child brides, making the country the 12th highest in the world in terms of absolute numbers.

She also cited a 2019 survey by the Oxfam-led Improving Availability of Reproductive Health Services in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao or the ARCHES Project, showed that 253, or 24 percent out of the 1,058 respondents from Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, and the Basulta regions (Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi), were cases of child marriage, and 97 percent of them involved girls.

“While poverty may be one of the reasons for child marriages, a more subtle impulse behind the practice could be attributed to social norms in communities where gender inequality entrenched is common,” Hontiveros added.

“These child marriages definitely contribute to the number of teenage pregnancies not only in ARMM but in the whole country. Though the cases in Western Visayas already decreased, however we need to admit that we missed the part of really looking into the common practices or the culture factor of teen pregnancy. We need to strengthen our interventions towards this cause to ensure that every adolescent is protected against forced marriage,” POPCOM-6 Director Harold Alfred P. Marshall said.

According to the data of the Philippines Statistics Authority (PSA), teenage pregnancy in Western Visayas in 2018 significantly dropped to 1.54 percent from 10.85 percent in 2015.

“One of the little steps that POPCOM-Region VI is doing now is making our programs and projects culture sensitive. We are partnering with the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples to help us reach our Indigenous Cultural Communities in the Western Viayas so we could provide culture-sensitive services to them,” Marshall said. (POPCOM-VI)