Portugal: Minimum age for marriage increasing

Lisbon: Parliament has approved the increase in the minimum age for marriage to 18 years, including early or forced marriage in the danger categories of the Child and Adolescent Protection Commissions.

The diploma “prohibits the marriage of minors, with a view to greater protection of the rights of children and young people”, in addition to including “child, early or forced marriage in all the danger categories of the Child and Young People Protection Commissions”. The initiative was agreed upon by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees, based on the BE and PAN bills approved in general terms on January 31.

The Assembly of the Republic decided to increase the minimum age for a young person to marry to 18 years and removed references to emancipation from several articles of legislation. Currently, young people can legally marry from the age of 16, but in these cases, up until the age of 18, authorisation from their parents or guardian is required.

The deputies want this law to come into force the day after its publication and provide for a transitional rule, which indicates that “marriages of people over 16 and under 18 legally performed before the entry into force of this law, as well as the emancipation of minors resulting from them, remain valid and, until both spouses reach the age of majority, continue to be governed by the rules amended or revoked by this law”.

Regarding the Law on the Protection of Children and Young People at Risk, Parliament decided to add to the list of cases that provide for intervention when minors are subjected to “child, early or forced marriage, or similar union, as well as to the practice of acts that aim at such union, even if not carried out”.

The law states that “child, early or forced marriage, or similar union, is understood to mean any situation in which someone under the age of 18 lives with another person in conditions similar to those of spouses, whether or not they have been forced into such a union, regardless of their cultural, ethnic or national origin”.