Topic: Eradicating Child Marriage
Country: Egypt
Delegate Name: Ashley Guynn
School: Fishers High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Egypt position papers GLIMUN 2012 committees
Egypt does have in place underage marriage laws. Under Egypt’s constitution it is illegal for girls to marry under the age of 18. At this age, the woman is old enough to consent to any marriage she would prefer. Breaking this law is a criminal offense and carries a penalty of imprisonment and a fine. Egypt recognizes there are ways around this law as well as ways to hide this law being broken. For this reason, Egypt has been working on finding new ways to enforce this law and increase the punishment of breaking the law.
Having said that, Egypt strongly believes the United Nations should not concern themselves with the topic of marriage. Egypt feels marriage is the states’ responsibility and in discussing the problem, the United Nations impedes on national sovereignty. It is the states’ government’s job to handle problems that arise is all aspects of marriage; including the laws of divorce, custody, and age. State’s governments handle most other public affairs, such as transportation and trade; they should also handle the public affair of marriage. The only solution that can be implemented is sending programs to that state in order to educate or teach women of marriage. However, sending such programs risks offending the government of that state and further impeding on their sovereignty. It is not the job of an international body to concern themselves with those public affairs of the states.
The United Nations concerning themselves with marriage wastes valuable time and resources that could be spent on a more prevalent, more significant topics. Disease that affects women, for example, affects individuals across the globe. HIV and AIDS are becoming more widespread and about half of the people infected are women. The reasons for women being more susceptible, such as gender inequality and violations in women’s rights, need to be addressed. Solutions to this problem need to be deliberated and put into action. However, instead of making significant progress with more significant topics, the UN is reflecting on marriage, a state’s responsibility, where one can only strongly urge to change the laws.
