Hayes JoMARRIAGE (COURT CONSENT TO MARRIAGE OF MINORS) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingJOANNE HAYES (National): 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."