2024-10-02 08:48:35
The Attorney General of the Nation, Margarita Cabello Blanco, asked the Constitutional Court to declare unenforceable the regulations that grant validity to marriages celebrated with minors under 18 years of age, considering them incompatible with the provisions of the ‘Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women’ (CEDAW).
In a concept sent to the high court, the head of the Public Ministry pointed out that there is a contradiction between the current regulations on the matter (Civil Code art. 117, 124 and 140 and Law 1306 of 2009 art. 53) and article 16.1 of the Convention , which considers these marriages as a form of forced union, with the understanding that the manifestation of the child or adolescent about that bond cannot be considered full, free and informed consent.
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In this sense, the official specified that given the existing contradiction and in response to the criterion of prevalence of international treaties over domestic legislation, the Constitutional Court must order the preferential application of CEDAW and declare the unenforceability of the existing norms.
He added that the preferential application of what is established in the international standard is imposed on this occasion, since there is no provision in our Constitution that expressly authorizes minors to marry and, therefore, “the source of the right of majority The range that governs the matter is the aforementioned international treaty, whose application optimizes the rights of children and adolescents, as well as the prerogatives of women,” the Attorney General pointed out.
And according to the Superintendency of Notaries and Registry, it revealed a series of data that are considered alarming about child marriage in the country. As of December 2023, 114 underage marriages were registered.
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