Marriage (Court Consent to Marriage of Minors) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Marriage (Court Consent to Marriage of Minors) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice and Electoral Committee to consider this bill. It is an honour and a privilege to stand and take the first call on the Marriage (Court Consent to Marriage of Minors) Amendment Bill. It is a bill in my name, but it was first put into the ballot in 2012 by the National Party MP, and now human rights commissioner, Dr Jackie Blue.

I want to acknowledge the Shakti refuge organisation in Auckland because it is this organisation that has been the recipient of some of the young women who have experienced forced marriages in New Zealand. I also want to acknowledge all the other organisations and people who have received these young women into their organisations and have worked tirelessly with them to help them through the various issues that they have faced due to forced marriage.

There is no denying that child marriages and forced marriages are the most horrific, horrific cultural practice that could happen, not just to young women but also to young men. It lines up there at the same level—but maybe this other area is worse—as genital mutilation. All these horrific stories that I have heard to do with forced marriage and child marriage just absolutely sicken me, and we must ensure that it must stop here in New Zealand before it gets legs and carries on.

Last year the member Louisa Wall and I, along with Dr Jackie Blue, were invited to the Shakti refuge in Manurewa. We were invited to listen to some young women’s evidence on their experience within a forced marriage. The cases I heard that I said sickened me, they absolutely sickened my guts out. In one case a young woman was faced with having to have a forced abortion, and in another case a woman was faced with deportation, leaving behind her 2-year-old child.

These women had come into New Zealand under a partnership visa. The women whom we interviewed—there were, obviously, more than two—had come in under the partnership visa. When the marriage breaks down, they have only one other choice, which is to be deported from New Zealand and return to their home countries to face what the wrath of their parents or their communities would do to them. Therefore, they are in a quandary, with no other option for a visa to stay in New Zealand. However, once the marriage is over, the man—the husband or the partner—is free to go and do it all over again, and we have got to stop that. We have got to stop that from happening on our shores.

We know a few things about child marriage, or the marriage of minors, in New Zealand. We know that between 2002 and 2011, there were 798 young brides in New Zealand—410 of those married in New Zealand, and 388 married overseas. You would think that if you have about 798 young brides between that period, you should have 798 grooms, but not so. There were only 97 grooms in New Zealand and 77 grooms from overseas, so there are some issues around that. Maybe the number was not counted properly—I do not know—but it just did not seem to match for me.

We know that some girls are also exported to New Zealand for the purpose of undergoing a forced marriage, and the man, who may have residence in New Zealand, may be importing them for that purpose alone. All of this has to do with charging a fee to the parents. A bit of a story is given to the young woman, who is told: “You come over here. You’ll get some free education. We’ll look after you.” Really, at the end of the day, their lives end up with them being slaves in an unwanted marriage and one that ends in violence, to the point that—we did hear stories of where young women have lost their lives, and there was no justice for them.

We know that marriages of 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds occur 80 times a year and that 80 percent of those marriages are between, obviously, 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds. We know that some of the marriages are forced or coerced by the parents, which I have already explained at the start of my speech, and I think there are actually many more of those types of marriages—forced marriages—in New Zealand that go undetected. They are not brought forward to the authorities, let alone to groups like Shakti and other NGOs in our community. That could be because these young women actually fear what might happen to them should they come forward to the authorities, but they should do that.

We also know that the legal age to marry in New Zealand is 18 years old. However, if your parents consent to the marriage and you are under the age of 18, then you will be able to get married. So once we start to look at that, we then start to look at what is under this bill. We are maintaining the legal age at 18, but what we are doing and proposing in this bill is that young people under 18 who want to be married not only have to garner parental support or parental consent but they also have to get consent from the Family Court. By doing this, there is another layer of protection—another set of eyes, I guess—for them. The bill also changes a couple of Acts: the Marriage Act 1955 and the Care of Children Act 2004.

I have heard recently that we should just leave the legal age of marriage at 18 and that for anybody under the age of 18, it would be illegal for them to get married. What some people are saying is that that would help to deter forced marriages of young people and child marriages. I am not sure how that would work in New Zealand. I have heard that in some countries they do have this law and that it does not really work—forced marriages and child marriages still go on underground. But I am the type of MP who is open for the debate, and people can debate that with me. I have got ears to listen and I will hear what they have to say.

Legislation is like everything, really—if it is not used, then it cannot help people. So this piece of legislation is going to encourage young women to speak up—to come forward and speak up—because there will be some boundary around it, some protection for them. New Zealand supports all efforts to eliminate the practice of forced marriage and it has signed up to several key international instruments to protect girls’ and women’s rights. When we start to look at this, we also see that under the family whānau violence legislation, coercion to marriage is an offence, bringing a maximum penalty of 5 years’ imprisonment—personally, I would like to see it being longer, but, you know—so this Government is sending a very clear message out to everybody that forced marriage for minors is unacceptable in New Zealand. It will be criminalised and it will be taken very seriously.

Before I finish my contribution, I just want to read out a couple of quotes that came in once this bill was drawn out of the ballot. The first one is from the Unicef Executive Director, Vivien Maidaborn. She said that the law change makes sense and that “It’s a really sound way of having an overview of a cultural practise that’s really common in other parts of the world,”. The Shakti women’s refuge said that Family Court consent would be “a good stopgap measure” for women who are facing this.

As I said, I am very proud to support this bill and bring it to the House. I encourage all parties to please support this bill because this is an area within our country that we need to stop before it grows legs and multiplies. Thank you. I commend it to the House. Kia ora.

Firstly, I must acknowledge and commend the member Joanne Hayes for bringing this bill to the House. Congratulations to you on having it drawn from the ballot. I commend you for the work that you have done to bring this bill, and the work that you will do on shepherding it through. Labour will be supporting this bill.

I also want to commend the member, who has been a co-chair of the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians group, along with Labour’s Louisa Wall, and the previous chair Dr Jackie Blue, who initiated the legislation and has really encouraged the women’s organisations within Parliament to think about what types of pieces of legislation we can support across the House, as members of Parliament. This is one such piece of legislation. It has been discussed quite fully and robustly at Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians meetings, and we are very proud as an organisation to be supporting this piece of legislation.

What is coercion, and what are we talking about in this particular piece of legislation? We are talking about marriages where one party, or at least one member of the party, is unwilling or lacks the capacity to actually make the decision about being married. Often, they are marriages between older men and young girls. I know that the member bringing the bill to the House was very moved by a Women in Politics meeting she attended in Kathmandu where this was actually discussed. She was particularly moved by the physical and emotional harms that can happen, particularly to young girls, when they are forced into relationships with people, at a young age, and forced into sexual relationships and having children, which sometimes can do physical harm to them because of their age. I know that she was passionate about ensuring that this piece of legislation actually found its place in Parliament.

Often, the brides come from overseas, and I know the member referred to that. Our immigration is such that we allow people to come through on partnership visas or on visas where you can sponsor people into the country. It is often the case where some women are sponsored into the country by people who will become their husbands, if they are not their husbands already, and they can, after a period of time, around 2 years, decide to no longer continue with that relationship and no longer sponsor that person. That woman no longer has an immigration status in this country, and that is problematic for her because it means that she is forced to leave, often having to leave behind children who were born in this country.

So I think, when we are talking about this piece of legislation, we also need to consider the wider implications of what happens to those women, particularly when they are sponsored into the country and can be abandoned by their husbands and left, really, with nothing, and forced to go back overseas. Sometimes, the cultural context within which they are returning means that they are shunned by their own societies, and it is problematic. It is one of the things that Shakti, the ethnic refuge, raises with politicians constantly—that it is an issue for them.

And speaking of Shakti, I do want to say that it is the only ethnic-specific refuge in this country that deals with women who have no immigration status, women who have been abandoned by their husbands, and, unfortunately, it is also not supported in terms of that work. We have heard, over the course of the last few months, Shakti’s pleas to ensure that its Wellington refuge gets funded, and that, unfortunately, has fallen on deaf ears. So I am hoping that the passage of this bill, for the House, actually raises the awareness of specific ethnic refuges for women, particularly those who will lose their immigration status should they be abandoned by immigration policies put in place by our Government and our Parliament.

I do want to quote from Shakti’s youth coordinator about the importance of this bill, because they are supportive of this. She states: “And for young people to know it’s not okay and that they can speak up about it and for parents and relatives to also know it’s not okay to force anyone into marriage.”

But it is not just about ethnicity. Yes, Mrs Hayes raises that as a specific concern, but it is not only about that. What does this bill do? Well, it actually allows for people of the age of 16 or 17 to marry, but only on their successful application through to the Family Court. So while currently that is possible with parental consent, what this bill does is add another element of safety to the process by requiring a Family Court judge to hear the application and to approve it. That will allow for cultural practice to continue, but it adds an element of safety and comfort to the people of New Zealand that those people engaged—those young people engaged—in marriage are not being forced into it and not forced to do so.

I also want to quote the justice Minister Amy Adams, who said that this piece of law was going to fill a hole that is in our current laws. In that regard, I want to commend the justice Minister for this morning launching the Family Violence Summit, where much was discussed, particularly around the new risk framework in family violence, and there was a lot of discussion around the current family violence law going through the House at the moment.

But there is one thing that I want to ask of the select committee when this bill goes to the select committee, and that is: why is this bill not part of the family and whānau legislation currently before the House? Why are we debating this as a separate bill? It would fit well within the parameters of the changes to the Domestic Violence Act that the Minister is currently proposing. Why are we engaged in a separate process for a specific piece that could actually fit very nicely into the current legislation? I would ask the select committee to examine that as a possibility to actually save taxpayers’ money and the Parliament’s time and fold this into the current legislation before the House, which is currently being heard at the Justice and Electoral Committee.

I do not want to draw out the debate. It is a useful bill, and it will actually add to ensuring that cultural practice is able to be observed but that we are not forcing young people into situations that we ought not to. It actually adds an element of safety. I again want to commend the member. I want to acknowledge the work that she has done in the cross-party women’s arena in this Parliament, and we thank her for bringing the bill to the House.

I would like to pick up where the previous speaker, Poto Williams, left off in acknowledging the people who have brought this to the House—in particular, obviously, Jo Hayes, who is the sponsor of the bill, but Jackie Blue before her in initially putting it together. Can I also acknowledge the work of the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians in championing this. I think it is great to see cross-party support of this type of legislation, and, if I could be so bold, I guess I would like to speak on behalf of the men in Parliament and say that we absolutely support this as well.

I guess one of the things—when it comes to being a parliamentarian, when it comes to this type of legislation is when I feel most proud to be a parliamentarian. It is when we can actually get together as parliamentarians across parties and ask what things are going on in our nation that are just plain not OK and what we can do to stop those things from occurring. At the moment in New Zealand there is evidence to suggest that there are young people, particularly young women aged 16 and 17, who are being, through whatever process, pushed into a marriage that they are not comfortable with, that they are not happy with, and as a result of that they are facing all sorts of atrocities, which the sponsor of the bill, Joanne Hayes, and Poto Williams have alluded to as well already in this debate. As the lawmakers in this land, it is beholden on us to actually put an end to those practices, and so, as a part of that, this bill goes some way in doing that, in ensuring that actually not just parental consent is required for a 16- or a 17-year-old to get married but that, in fact, a court must determine that this is OK to occur.

I guess that in days gone by we always would have assumed—I presume when the Marriage Act was first put into place—that parents giving their consent would be adequate, because they would have the best interests of their children at heart. Evidence shows us that on occasion that is not the case. So now it is, obviously, beholden on the State, as I said, to get involved through the court process to ensure that the rights of these young people, and particularly these young women, are protected. So it will require a judgment from a judge in a court to ensure that protection is offered. This legislation in and of itself will not necessarily ensure that it will not happen, but it will put a step in place to stop parents who might be perpetrators of this—so that they actually think twice before they put their child up for one of these types of marriages because they are going to face the scrutiny of the court. If that can stop even one from occurring, then this process will have been worth it.

I think it is also good to look at this legislation in the context of other legislation that is currently before the House, namely the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill, which is currently before the Justice and Electoral Committee. This legislation brings into place a new offence of coercion to marry, and that will make it an offence for anyone to coerce any person, regardless of their age, into a marriage relationship. It is good to see that occurring.

It is one of the great privileges we have in the Justice and Electoral Committee to have this type of legislation coming through—where we can work, as I said before, across the Parliament to ensure that we can put laws in place that will protect the vulnerable people within our society. I look forward at the Justice and Electoral Committee to hearing further evidence around this bill. I am sure I probably will not enjoy hearing some of the stories that are likely to come through, but I think it will be important for us to get a greater understanding of the ramifications of what is going on now so that we can ensure that the rights and the mana of the young people in this country are protected.

Again, I commend those who have been behind bringing this legislation to the House. I look forward to us examining it more closely within the select committee context, and I look forward to this—along with the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill—passing to ensure that young people in our country no longer have to fear the type of abuse that can occur when these things go on. I commend this bill to the House.

It is a great pleasure to rise and speak on behalf of the Green Party in support of Joanne Hayes’ member’s bill, the Marriage (Court Consent to Marriage of Minors) Amendment Bill. I would just like to acknowledge her for having the luck that managed to get this pulled from the ballot. I would also like to acknowledge the advocacy work that she has been doing up to this point to gain support for and understanding of this issue, which is work that was initially started by Dr Jackie Blue, the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner, who drafted this bill initially, in 2012.

It is slightly confusing to me, when there is unanimous support across this House for this bill, that this has come to the House through a member’s bill 5 years on from when it was first written. I think there was a petition in support of this, signed by 82 members of this House a couple of years ago, and every woman in every party is, from my understanding, on the record as supporting this. It does seem a bit strange that it has taken a member’s bill—though, at the same time, there is a tiny bit where it is nice, actually, to acknowledge the personal work that has gone into it, and a member’s bill enables us to do that. So thank you.

For me, I think this is about getting to the point where forced child marriage is—we are talking about slavery; that is what it is. If you are forced into a relationship for life or for years, where you have no control and it is against your will, and where you are in a relationship of subservience, that is a form of slavery. That has no place in our society. We know that, in these relationships, if it is against the child’s will, then there is going to be, in all likelihood, a relationship filled with sexual violence because it is against that child’s will. So it is critically important for us, as a society, to say: “Actually, this has no place. We do not want this in our society. We want all of our children”—and this is mostly about girls—“to be able to be free, to make their own decisions, and to have the bodily integrity and opportunities in life.”

Therefore, this bill gives us a sense of protection, because we know that that is not the case at the moment. There are girls, mostly, and potentially from looking at some of the numbers, some boys as well, who may be living those lives. We have heard from advocates in Shakti who have been in touch with some of these young women who have been forced into these lives of slavery and who, because of the way our laws exist at the moment, really have very, very little protection. So to build in a step where, if there is going to be a marriage before the age of 18, a judge has oversight of that; where the applicant, both parties, has the opportunity to be heard; where, as far as reasonably practical, we also hear from the parents as well in that process; where there would be able to be lawyers involved in that discussion; and where this is to be a private process that happens in the court, not under the eye of the media—because I do think there is a potential for these discussions and for the situation, while it is very significant and severe, to be sensationalised and to become an issue that could feed racism and could actually make it harder for some women in some situations to come forward and get help when they need it. I do also, on that note, want to echo the call from my colleague Poto Williams for the need to fund Shakti. That is the organisation that has the most ability to work effectively with women from the communities most likely affected, and we need to make sure they are properly resourced to do this work.

But this is a great bill. It is about time. We need to make a stand as a country against the exploitation of women and girls.

I take great pleasure in rising to support my friend and colleague MP Jo Hayes’ excellent member’s bill, which seeks to require Family Court approval for the marriage of 16-year-old children and 17-year-old children—minors, I think it is—in New Zealand. I think it is a necessary measure, and I have to commend the member for bringing this bill to the House. It is something she has worked assiduously on now for a number of years.

I also want to welcome the cross-party agreement that has broken out over this, I think, useful and necessary piece of legislation. As the Pacific-regional representative for the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association I want to commend our female counterpart group the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians, who have worked so successfully across party lines to engage with the community and draft a set of measures that, sadly, are necessary given the prevalence of forced cultural marriage without the child’s consent.

In a previous life I worked overseas and had some dealings with an immigration case where the applicant later turned out to be a people trafficker, a drug dealer, and someone who offended against New Zealand citizens here in New Zealand. It should have been picked up immediately that this person was not a fit person and was not of good character to come to this country when it was recorded on his initial immigration application many years ago that he had married a girl who was then age 9, in a country where it was legal to do so. It may remain legal in a few dark and desperate parts of the world to marry a child as young as the age of 9, but this is an alien concept in New Zealand and something that we cannot accept under whatever guise it is presented, whether it be as a cultural norm or something that is legally permitted.

Let us not focus just on certain parts of the world that get a lot of media attention, such as the Middle East and Africa. I would note that there are at least two US states where it is legal for girls—girls, specifically—as young as 12 and 13 to marry. In the same state there are special provisions if the girl is pregnant where very little approval or oversight is needed for that marriage, whereas in those same states the age for boys is 14. So there is a disjunct there.

I think this is legislation that will be particularly protective of girls, because we know that of the thousand or so teenagers—that is, people 19 years old and younger—who marry in New Zealand, there is a predomination of female victims of this practice. So I welcome the bill, I commend my colleague, and I hope it passes forthwith.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Marriage (Court Consent to Marriage of Minors) Amendment Bill. Can I just pick up on a comment about cross-party accord breaking out. There is no accord that has “broken out”; the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians have all been working on this piece of legislation for some time and, actually, they attempted to have this piece of legislation brought to the House last year, I think—or the year before.

It asked the Speaker 2 years ago whether we could put it in with a woman’s name from every single party inside this House. Unfortunately, the Speaker, I believe, ruled that there was no capacity to do that. So this House has no capacity for a cross-party accord that has been working together for some time to bring this piece of legislation or any other piece of legislation to this House—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Yeah, but we’re doing it now, so what are you talking about?

—and so, Mr Bridges—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: It’s what we’re doing right now.

—Mr Bridges—perhaps that is something that needs to be looked at for the future.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: But why? We’re doing it now.

Regarding this piece of legislation—Mr Bridges—let us be clear that up until 1933 you could be 12 or 14 in this country and be able to marry. So it has been only since 1933 that a 16- and 17-year-old—the age got lifted then and their parents were able to actually give permission or consent for that to happen. We are interested—New Zealand First is interested—in why this is not included inside the family and whānau violence legislation. We understand how it got to be a member’s bill. We were intimately involved in getting it to that point. But the fact is that there is another mechanism by which it could be recognised, because this is violence against children. So the fact that it stands to one side, away from that piece of legislation, interests us.

I also want to make sure that when this goes to the select committee we look at the fact that this is not just young people from another nation who may be brought here. I hope that there might be some scope inside either this piece of legislation or the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill to have a look at being able to lay charges against parents who do the following: I know intimately young women who have actually been sent back to Iraq at the age of 15, were married, and produced two children, and were brought back to New Zealand because they carried a New Zealand passport. They brought that husband with them, who was some years older than them. They did so against their will, but their parents took them there.

What is the opportunity for that young woman to come back to New Zealand where she is safe and actually lay charges against those people who forced her into that situation? The family attempted to do the same thing to her younger sister, and her younger sister fled with the support of Women’s Refuge and left behind the two children that the older sister had had and every piece of family that they had had in this country. They were originally refugees, they were New Zealand citizens, and this took place. Have we got any scope to make sure that justice can be sought by New Zealand citizens who are manipulated and used in this way? If not, then where would they seek justice from?

So we stand in support because we know that this has to happen. It is not new though. I just want to put another piece of information in. In the 1970s, 285 boys and 2,304 girls aged 16 or 17 were wed in New Zealand. Times have changed. The reasons for which these young people are being married now are completely different, and that is what we have to address. We have to address the reasons why these marriages are being entered into. We have to recognise that force is taking place, and somewhere down the line we are going to have to address, if these are children—and this Government has argued, even, that the age of responsibility should be raised for criminals—what they are doing in a sexual relationship that is being condoned by the State under the guise of marriage?

💬 Chris Bishop: You don’t know it’s sexual.

It is a conversation internationally, Mr Bishop; you might want to catch up, all right? We are going to have to address this. It raises issues around the age of consent. It raises other issues. But at some stage—this is merely a step on the way forward and we are going to have to catch up with the rest of the developed world and talk about why these children are in marriage in the first instance. Kia ora.

Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker, and—

💬 Kris Faafoi: Don’t call it dull and worthy.

Ha, ha! I am not going to call it dull but worthy. Kris Faafoi is making mention of how I described my colleague Stuart Smith’s member’s bill about credit unions and friendly societies earlier on.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: I thought you were talking about Kris’ career.

Ha, ha! I am not talking about Mr Faafoi’s career, either. It has certainly been worthy—at least up to this point. This bill is not actually a bill like that. This bill is actually a really important bill. I want to congratulate my colleague Jo Hayes on her important work in bringing it to the House. Before I came down to speak on this bill I was watching the debate in my office, and it seems there has been a bit of discussion around the process, which is, you know, debate around how the bill has got to this point. We have had a bit of debate about whether or not it should be included in the family violence legislation that is actually before our Justice and Electoral Committee, which I serve on, at the moment. We have had a discussion, including from Tracey Martin just before, about how the bill should or should not have come here. But the point is that it is here, and I think there is cross-party agreement that it is a sensible step forward.

I think it is something that the Justice and Electoral Committee is going to take a good look at. I have got to say, we have got a pretty busy schedule at the moment. We have got the family violence reform going through, and also some of what it probably would be fair to say are dull but worthy bills. The Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill has just come through our committee.

💬 Paul Foster-Bell: Very important.

It is a very important bill, my colleague Paul Foster-Bell, who is in charge of the bill, says. So we have got a busy schedule, but we are going to take a very good look at this.

When I was first talking to my colleague Jo Hayes about this bill, I was surprised to learn that what the bill proposes to enact is not already the law, actually. I was surprised to learn that 16- and 17-year-olds in New Zealand could get married with parental consent. I actually thought the status quo was what the bill proposes will be the new status quo, which is that you need the permission of the court. As Tracey Martin, I think, quite eloquently pointed out in her contribution to the debate, these are minors and, actually, there are real worries around the vulnerability of these children and there are real worries around the concept of coercion and of force in doing this, and so I think it is an appropriate step forward. I actually think that what Ms Martin said in her contribution is right. There are wider issues around this, and I think the select committee is the appropriate place to ventilate some of those concerns. I am not sure how much we will be able to get through before the election, but I am sure this is the sort of bill that will carry over into the new Parliament. We will be considering it, as Ms Martin said, at the same time as the family violence piece of legislation, which is a Government bill in Amy Adams’ name. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you so much, Mr Assistant Speaker, for this opportunity. I would like to commend Jo Hayes for bringing this bill to the House, but also for getting agreement. It sounds like most of the parties in this House are going to agree to this bill. It is a very, very good bill.

One forced marriage in Aotearoa New Zealand is one too many. What we know is that we have at least 80 forced marriages in this country right now. This bill is really good in that it will give the consent over to the Family Court, but I worry—and I hope that the select committee will actually discuss this—what of those families who do not utilise our systems right now? What we know, from Shakti and from other organisations that deal with a lot of these under-age marriages, is that a lot of them do not even happen with marriage celebrants. They do not come through churches. These marriages happen either at home or in other—they do not actually happen with folks who are registered. That would be one of the questions that I hope the committee will come up with some possible responses to.

As I say, it is one thing to think that in this country we do not have under-age marriages. But, you know, one of the things that really shocked me a few days ago was when I was reading an article that told me that the country I was born and raised in had 50 under-age marriages, as young as 15 years of age. It shocked me because I did not know that there were that many people, that many young people, especially young women, in my home country, which has an overall population 100,000—50 of them. Some of these people as young as 15 and 16 are getting married, even here in New Zealand. But I wanted to say that it is for a similar reason as some of the reasons we have heard from organisations like Shakti: a lot of these young women are getting married that young because they are pregnant.

New Zealand is one of those countries that has signed up to a lot of international conventions. We have said that we will protect our young people. All of our young people have human rights—and that is also one of the things that I commend you for, Jo Hayes, with this particular bill.

One of the examples that Shakti gave in one of its submissions was an example of a young lady who has been in New Zealand, as a New Zealand citizen, since she was 4 years old. She is now 18, but she sought assistance and help from Shakti because her family had her engaged as young as 12 years of age. At 12 years of age she was supposed to go back to Afghanistan and marry another cousin. This young girl became suicidal. There are, unfortunately, quite a number of young people like her.

There is another case, of a young woman who came to this country in a forced marriage. She was 16 when she was brought here. She was married, had a child, but, similar to what Tracey Martin and my Green Party colleague spoke of before, it was slave labour. She had to do everything in the house. It got to a point where she got so sick of it that she went and jumped into the river. She did not know how to swim but, fortunately for her, someone saw her, rescued her, and took her to Shakti. This particular woman is now living an independent life.

So, again, forced marriage has no place in Aotearoa New Zealand. I just want to make one point, though: a forced marriage is different from an arranged marriage. An arranged marriage is usually one where the families take a leading role in choosing the partner in a marriage, but both of those individuals concerned usually still have a choice as to whether or not to go through with the marriage. There are some cultures in New Zealand that have arranged marriages. I wanted to just make sure that we cover off—that we are not, actually, in this bill, talking about arranged marriages. Thank you.

On that note, I just want to follow on from the speaker who has just taken her seat, Jenny Salesa. We are, in fact, not talking about arranged marriages. Speaking as someone who almost got married in an arranged marriage quite a few years ago, we are not suggesting that arranged marriages are wrong. There are many different cultures that have those kinds of marriages.

What we are talking about is actually child marriage. In New Zealand, child marriage is illegal. If you are under the age of 16, you cannot get married. We are talking about the age between 16 and 18. It is legally possible to marry when you are 18, but there are some instances in New Zealand where children—well, they are children, because they are 16 and 17; my son is 18 and I still think of him as a child. To imagine that a child who is younger than my child could possibly be forced into marriage—and it does actually happen—is wrong.

I commend all of the speakers who have spoken on this bill, the Marriage (Court Consent to Marriage of Minors) Amendment Bill. I commend the work of the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians (CWP). I remember having discussions in the CWP meeting about this particular bill. I congratulate Jo on having this bill drawn from the ballot.

In New Zealand, for those children between the ages of 16 and 18, who cannot get married legally, they are still able to get married if they have parental consent. That is perfectly fine. But we just want to put an extra barrier in place just in case there is abuse in the system, whether it is cultural or religious or whatever, where the child themselves does not want to get married and they are being coerced, forced—whether it is with physical threat, emotional threat, financial threat, sexual threat, whatever it is—into a marriage that they do not actually want to consent to. We want to make sure that these children are doubly protected.

We would like to think that all parents want to protect their children, but sometimes even the parents cannot help themselves. They are in a situation, whether they are in debt to the other family perhaps, in a cultural context, or maybe they are indebted for generations—I do not know. We are not suggesting that those cultural practices are wrong. It is just that we need to protect our children who do not have the voice that they should have in this country. Those children who are under the age of 18 who do not want to get married should not be able to get married—even if their parents want to force them to get married.

We need to be able to protect these children so that there is a boundary, there is a barrier against someone trying to force them to actually do something that they do not will or wish to actually happen. I think it is wonderful to see everyone in this House agreeing on this bill. It is probably the first time in a very long time that we actually agree on a particular bill. I congratulate the member, and I commend the bill to the House. But let us remember—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Most of us agreed on the Family Incomes Package.

Sorry?

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: No, don’t worry.

I did not hear you. A little while ago, I was just talking to my colleague next to me, Paul Foster-Bell, about the fact that many decades ago, in 1950, when the Korean War happened, navy seamen—boys—were so young they lied about their age, and often they went to war and they fought a war when they were so young. And there are children who actually want to get married. If they do want to get married and they want to get the consent of their parents, they should also convince the court as well that they should get married. It is just a protection mechanism that we want to put in place, to make sure that those who do not want to do it cannot do so and cannot be forced to do so. Thank you. I commend the bill to the House.

💬 David Clendon: Mr Assistant Speaker.

Sorry—David Clendon. I am sorry, David. I just could not remember your surname. Clendon, David.

That is fine, Mr Mallard. I am sure you know it deep down somewhere. I should probably begin my short contribution on this bill with something of a mea culpa, and perhaps even an apology to the member, Joanne Hayes, who has brought it to the House. I confess that when I first saw the title and just read the top line, it occurred to me that the bill might be something of a solution in search of a problem. It simply proposed that 16- and 17-year-olds who wish to marry must go to the court. I have been aware, all of my life anyway, that 16- and 17-year-olds could marry with parental consent. I thought: if a system is not broken, why fix it? Clearly, I have learnt something in the intervening few weeks, and more so this evening, hearing the contributions from members—that, actually, there is a serious problem that young people are being forced into marriage, and that is something we cannot tolerate in this country, clearly.

I think Tracey Martin indicated 1933 as the point at which—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Winston was born?

—we allowed 16- and 17-year-olds—ha! That is unkind, Mr Bridges. It was the point at which 16- and 17-year-olds could marry with parental consent. This will raise the bar, clearly. It is sad to acknowledge that, in some instances, clearly, parental consent is given even against the wishes of the young people involved. Marriage is, at least nominally, a life-long commitment, and people should only enter into it obviously wishing to and at least with consent. I am aware, of course, that some people enjoy marriage so much that they try it several times, but let us not go there.

I think the process that the bill describes is a straightforward one. The Family Court is, obviously, the appropriate place to hear these matters. It is not a matter of dealing with offending or crimes, obviously; it is actually about preventing something from happening that really would be in the nature of a crime. As I say, the process is laid out. The applicant must be given an opportunity to put their case. Ideally, the parents of the applicant ought to be there, as is only reasonable, because, obviously, parents always will and should have a view on these matters. It enables the presence of a lawyer, and, of course, at some Family Court proceedings lawyers are either discouraged or not allowed in some instances. I think it is important that people do have legal representation, because some of these situations could, obviously, be quite fraught.

It excludes members of the public or media. The last thing one wants in these situations is any sort of a circus or any sensationalisation of a situation. It would be a very difficult and often very painful situation, I suspect, for people to go through these sorts of things. So I think that the process laid out—finally, too, that the court may hear evidence that may not otherwise be admissible. The strict laws of evidence do not apply in these instances. Again, I think that is appropriate given that it is likely to be members of the public with very little experience or understanding. It gives the judges the widest-possible scope to make decisions on these matters. So I do think the process has clearly been thought through fairly carefully and is appropriate to the task.

The point has been made by the MP—by Jo Hayes—that the problem exists primarily in the Pacific and Asian communities. I think it is important that we do differentiate between accepted or cultural practice, and forced marriages, which are not acceptable, I suspect, certainly in New Zealand culture more generally. It is also important that we do not get into any sort of a blame game, to suggest that any particular cultural or ethnic group—that their practices around birth, death, marriage, coming of age—is better or worse than any other. Every culture, every ethnicity has these practices, has these norms, and that is as it should be. What a dull world it would be if we all did exactly the same thing.

This bill clearly differentiates between traditional practice, cultural practice, and the notion of forced marriages. Forcing young people, 16- and 17-year-olds—though I am loath to call them children, because many people of that age obviously do not consider themselves children. But the fact is, in the greater scheme of things, they are very young people and they are very vulnerable in some situations, so it is important they not be coerced into these matters.

Just two minor things to wrap up that occur to me: the numbers here are not great, but I am also aware that the Family Court is running very close to maximum a lot of the time. I think the issue of resourcing the Family Court might be something the select committee might take up, and also, perhaps, support for people after these proceedings. Thank you.

I do again apologise to the member. It was just a straight mental blank.

I just want to thank everybody for their contributions here tonight, supporting the first reading of this bill. I look forward to it getting through the vote and heading off to the Justice and Electoral Committee, where we will listen to more testimony and information that will come. Without any further ado, I commend the bill to the House.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee.