By Maysoon Muhammad
A large number of Syrian refugees live in Turkey, their number exceeded three and a half million, more than half of them, women and children, carried with them the different models of their lives mainly between the life of the Syrian countryside with its customs, concepts and social structures, and among the city dwellers who fled from the barrel bombs, the bombing and massacres of the regime, and the degree of development of their economic, cultural and social life.
These social differences have tribal and clan roots in part, in addition to the factor of poverty and destitution resulted from asylum to escape death, and most of them were living from the fatigue of their day, so they found themselves captives to different working relationships and low wages, which constituted great material and psychological burdens on the families who live at a minimal level, and this has caused the spread of a dangerous social phenomenon, the marriage of underage girls.
A minor, according to the definition adopted in the United Nations, is every person who has not reached the age of eighteen. In this marriage, there is an explicit violation of human rights (children), as the individual at this stage has not completed his mental, physical and psychological maturity, and therefore he finds himself in a position that they cannot manage the psychological, cultural and social consequences of this incorrect marriage.
This phenomenon is widespread in the countryside of Syria, and in poor families, as they consider early marriage to reduce their living expenses. This is what prompted the legislators, before the events in Syria, to prevent such marriage, except on conditions that are difficult for many to achieve, and although this phenomenon receded a little in the last years before the revolution, it reappeared strongly in the places of displacement inside Syria, and in the neighboring countries of refuge including Turkey.
This asylum and displacement caused cultural and social shocks for refugees and displaced persons, but the most severe were the legal ones, especially with regard to the marriage of minors, as Syrian refugees discovered that early marriage is a crime punishable by Turkish law, and considers it a crime of sexual exploitation, and despite that it did not stop, and it continued outside the legal framework, it has a direct negative impact on the psychological and mental construction of minors, represented in depriving them of their legal rights, foremost of which is the right to education and psychological saturation of childhood and young adulthood, completely depriving them of the legitimacy of registering marriage in Turkish courts, in addition to the difficulty of establishing marriage in Syrian courts.
The document on the rights of the child issued by UNICEF has defined a minor as a person who has not reached the age of eighteen years, while the legal definition of a minor is a person under a certain age, usually the age of maturity, which is the age that is related to eligibility, and legal capacity which is determined as the age that if he reaches, a human being is able to bear the responsibility of himself before the law, without referring to his relatives, and he has rights such as marriage, election and childbearing.
The age of maturity in most countries of the world is set at 18 years, and anyone under this age is a minor.
The UNICEF Child Rights Document defines early marriage as marriage at the age of less than 18 years, and from the point of view of Turkish law, it is not considered marriage, and is classified as a crime of sexual abuse of a minor.
And it must be mentioned that there are no accurate official statistics on the size of the phenomenon of Syrian underage marriage in Turkey, while the United Nations estimates that 26% of Syrian girls marry under the age of 18 in Turkey, but these statistics are general and variable, because marriage takes place outside the legal system, and it is not possible to provide accurate information on this phenomenon.
Perhaps one of the reasons that exacerbated this problem is the disagreement between the religious orientations of the refugee and host communities, where there are large and different segments that are dominated by conservative nature, and they live in a country within religious controls protected by law in the face of a country with a secular system, in which social and legal relations are regulated, and a civil law does not depend on the legitimate rules, as is the case in Syria.
Despite the amendment of Article 16 of the Syrian Personal Status Law by raising the age of marriage from 17 to 18 years, it did not resolve the controversy, and the door remained open for the continuation of the marriage of underage girls, especially with the presence of Article 18 of the Syrian Personal Status Law, which states that “in the event that he claims an adolescent reaches puberty after completing fifteen or adolescence after completing thirteen and requests marriage with the permission of the judge, they have the right to do so, if the judge finds that their claim is true, and their bodies bear the burdens and consequences of marriage and childbearing.
Based on this article, there is no legal obstacle to early marriage in Syria, which exposed the refugees in Turkey to legal problems that were not taken into account, while Turkish law criminalizes the marriage of underage girls.
Thus, legalizing the phenomenon of underage marriage is not an easy and immediate process.
However, there are steps that can help control the phenomenon, reduce the legal consequences of the continuation of marriages outside the law, and help protect minors, which is to intensify the role of the Syrian civil society and its organizations in Turkey, by raising awareness about the danger of the phenomenon of underage marriage, and its social and economic effects on the parents and the minor alike.
There is a need for cooperation between Syrian and Turkish civil society organizations to carry out awareness campaigns and large-scale civil initiatives in the places where Syrian refugees gather, to familiarize them with Turkish law, especially with regard to underage marriage, the reasons for its criminalization, and the legal consequences that result from its continuation.