https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/11-and-married-malaysia-spars-over-child-brides/ar-BBLeLiP?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U346DHP

GUA MUSTANG, Malaysia — Norazila and Ayu were best friends and they shared everything that girls do: sleepovers, selfies, musings about cute boys.

But their friendship, which had blossomed in their placid hamlet in northern Malaysia, was destroyed late last month when Norazila, 14, discovered that Ayu, 11, had secretly become her father’s third wife.

“My best friend is my stepmother now,” said Norazila, whose family name is Che Abdul Karim, as she scrolled through her Facebook page filled with posts of the girls posing with adolescent pouts and fingers forming peace signs. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Ayu’s marriage to Che Abdul Karim Che Abdul Hamid, a 41-year-old rubber trader with a prominent role at his mosque and a fleet of fancy cars, has reignited debate in Malaysia about the persistence of conservative Islamic traditions in this modern, multiethnic democracy.

But an effort to outlaw underage unions for all Malaysians amid the toughening of child sex crime legislation failed in Parliament. Arguing against the ban, Shabudin Yahaya, a legislator from what was then the governing party, said that a girl as young as 9 could be ready for marriage if she had gone through puberty.

“Their body is already akin to them being 18 years old,” Mr. Shabudin, a former Shariah court judge, said in a parliamentary session. “So physically and spiritually, it is not a barrier for the girl to marry.”

Many child marriages in Malaysia are informal pairings that are not legally recognized by any court. But couples who do try to register their marriages find little resistance. A study by the Malaysia office of Unicef found that of 2,143 child marriage applications made to Shariah courts in seven Malaysian states from 2012 to 2016, 10 were refused.

In some instances, girls have ended up married to men charged with raping them. In 2015, a man from the eastern Malaysian state of Sarawak was charged with the statutory rape of a 14-year-old girl. But the case was dropped after he married her with permission from a Shariah court. Marital rape is not a crime in Malaysia.

Mohamad Amar Nik Abdullah, Kelantan’s deputy chief minister and vice president of the Malaysian Islamic Party, stressed that child marriage was legal in Islam and said the country had more pressing social issues to address.

Liberal Malays have questioned whether child marriage is truly an Islamic tradition or simply an outdated cultural practice. They have challenged the notion that the Prophet Muhammad married one of his wives when she was 6, saying that she was, in fact, much older.

“We cannot use a historical error about the Prophet Muhammad to condone child marriage,” said Ms. Latheefa, the human rights lawyer. “That’s sickening.”

This month, Malaysia’s Islamic affairs minister, Mujahid Yusof Rawa, said that his ministry had begun efforts to prohibit child marriage for Muslims, even as he cautioned that putting such a ban into effect would take time.

Meanwhile, Mr. Che Abdul Karim’s first two wives have banded together. “We have said to him, it is us or that girl,” said Siti Noor Azila, Mr. Che Abdul Karim’s second wife. “We said, you choose. You cannot have all three of us.”

Malaysia follows general Islamic custom by allowing Muslim men up to four wives.

Ms. Siti Noor said her husband never gave her enough money to care for their four children, including one with spina bifida. She works as a baker to pay her bills.

“He is so stingy with us, but he has enough money to get married to Ayu and take her on holiday,” Ms. Siti Noor said, referring to a trip to a hill retreat that Mr. Che Abdul Karim posted about on social media. Ayu, she said, was the only one of the wives allowed to ride in their husband’s Mazda sports car.

“Their father never takes care of them,” she said. “He doesn’t even like children.”

Ms. Siti Noor corrected herself. “Except one,” she said. “That Ayu.”

We know that Pedophilia and Child Sex Trafficking runs rampant in Malaysia. Let's hope this fight movies in the right direction.