22nd February 2009 - Saudi officials block children's marriages: report (Aus)

Permission for two 13 year-old girls to marry has been denied by the Saudi authorities, despite a ruling last month by the Kingdom's most senior cleric that it was permissible for girls as young as ten to enter the matrimonial state. Human rights workers in the Kingdom have been lobbying for a minimum age to be set in law, preventing such child marriages.