Mervat al-Telawy, head of the National Council for Women said the state has to pass a law criminalizing underage marriage as it has become a more common occurence in many cities in Egypt, she said in an interview on OnTV Channel.
There are cases where underage girls marry more than three times a month with rich Arabs who marry for temporary pleasure and grant girls money and villas in return, Telawy said.
Telawy added she appealed to officials more than once to address the phenomenon but they did not respond.
The phenomenon is one of the main reasons behind girls' education dropout, she claimed.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
