Iranian authorities annul temporary marriage between the man and 11-year-old girl

The court in the province of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad announced that the temporary marriage between the child and the man has been annulled.  They were reportedly wed in a remote southwestern Iranian province recently with a video of the ceremony posted online.

According to Radio Liberty, the video was posted online by journalist Javad Heydarian, who later said he wanted to create "a public warning" to help prevent such marriages from taking place.

Citing the provincial prosecutor Hassan Negin Taji, ISNA (Iranian Students News Agency) news agency says indictments had been issued against the groom, the caretakers of the child, and the cleric who officiated the ceremony because the marriage violated Article 50 of Iran's family law, which states that if a man marries a girl who has not reached the legal age he will be sentenced from six months to two years in prison.

Iran's legal age for girls to be married is 13 with parental consent -- but girls younger than that can only be married with permission from a judge. For boys, the legal age for marriage is 15.

This is not the first time such a marriage occurs in Iran.    

Radio Liberty reports that according to statistics released by Iran's National Organization for Civil Registration, from March 2013 to March 2017, 1,007 girls under the age of 10 and more than 190,000 girls younger than 14 were married in Iran.

According to UNICEF, 17 percent of girls in Iran are married before the age of 18 and three percent are married before the age of 15.  This number only accounts for registered marriages.