Strange how you can remember a statistic from 2011 or did you just google the Australian article of 14 Feb? You conveniently forgot to mention that 6% were muslim even tho they make up only 2.2% of the population also most of the underage marriages were Aboriginal.


The majority of 15- to 17-year-olds married or in a de facto marriage were born in Australia. Of those who identified as married, 57 per cent identified as Christian and 6 per cent were Muslim. About 30 per cent did not state their religion or identified as no religion

15+X= 39 

Solve for X

Therefore if it is not reported to the police it did not happen.

Brilliant Sherlock.   

Welcome to the brave new world. We’ve moved on from discussing non-existent cases to cases only paid-up Rupert subscribers have the fortune (misfortune?) to read.

I’m ruling this one out of order. If you won’t post it, it must be bullsh!t.

Adamant wrote on Mar 8^th, 2014 at 12:31pm:


I read the article. It’s about an arranged marriage for the purpose of immigration.

As discussed, I know a number of Indian cases just like this. They all consented. Arranged marriage is a part of life for most Indians, and Indian marriages are a huge back door entry to Australia. It’s a way in for many immigrants, Afganis included.

On your Afghani case, it says the girl was 15 when "forced" to marry, but not how old she was when she married.

For immigration purposes, an underage marriage wouldn’t work. Spousal visas are a huge process that take years.Huge evidence is required. Birth certificates, criminal records, photos, support letters. I wrote letters to support my own father’s defacto’s spousal visa. It took 4 years to get, and cost a fortune.

The legal minimum age for marriage in Australia is 18, and 16 with parental consent.

While your example is a nasty case of Afgani tribal customs and their feudal treatment of women, it is not a case of underage marriage. Immigration would not have granted a visa if it was. The girl was coerced, not forced. There is definitely a fine line here, but her signature was all over her documents, and she would have been interviewed extensively by Immigration case officers, as my father and his partner were.

Thanks for the article. Even with the entire Murdoch empire’s relentless investigation aparatus in full crusade mode, we’re back down to an epidemic of one case.

The headlines in these stories are always perversely histrionic, and the detail is always scant. Most of the facts are wrong, and parts of the other stories are deliberately merged..

Hence we get confused about things like a "second imam", Centrelink "spousal benefits", and a new statistic of 1000 underage defacto marriages, which were previously quoted as "hundreds across NSW".

And none of them Muslim. As Adamant shows, most were certainly Aboriginal, hence the large number in rural and remote areas.

This is a News Ltd campaign. The election is well and truly over, and we’re back to sport and dastardly Muselmen on the front pages again.

I have no problem with this, but it becomes a problem when people don’t read closely and question what they’re being told. Every story I’ve read so far on this issue has had glaring mistakes and innacuracies. Many have had no facts at all. Some, if I’m not mistaken, are even breaking the law by not quoting cases before the courts as "aledged" crimes. Most are breaching the AJA code of conduct for deliberate misrepresentation of information, if not lies.

Unfortunately, in this sort of media landscape, you have to fact check articles and do secondary research. The stories themselves can’t be trusted, as we’ve seen.

If people here are happy with lies because it suits "their" agenda, remember that such happiness is an illusion. It’s about keeping you dumb and riled up enough to get you through the day, producing and consuming. This, after all, is how the old boy sells his cheese. Lucky no one asks about the ingredients.

This  "epidemic" is a drummed-up media campaign in collaboration with News Ltd’d London tabloids. It’s purpose is to keep you angry, hostile to foreigners, and eager to read more news and consume more advertising.

This is what the print news has become after its business model became overturned by the internet and it experienced massive journalist cutbacks. In many cases, the print media  can no longer afford to investigate news stories, so journalists sit on their computers, quote other stories from other countries, and rail against imaginary evils, like Muslim "epidemics". 

And this, my friends, is what demokracy has become in the "information" age.

Yes, effendes, ignorance is strength.

But Gud is great.

freediver wrote on Mar 8^th, 2014 at 1:48pm:


Yes it is a slight over-representation. 

It is also a very small amount of the total, completely eclipsed in scale from both Christians and non-religious in Australia.

Read your sources next time, your argument that Islamic under age marriage is widespread based on your evidence is as laughable as it is pathetic, even if you DID bother to read your own source.

6% of the total Freediver, is more than the percentage of Muslims in Australia.  Is that what you want to hear?

Why are you singling out Muslims for this, when they make up 6 out of every 100 people who are in this situation?  More Australian Christians are guilty of this.  More Australian non-religious types are guilty of this.

Maybe if it was more prevalent you would not have to rely on articles that are almost a quarter of a century old (which you didn't read anyway)

freediver wrote on Mar 8^th, 2014 at 1:48pm:


Sure. We’ve got three. One, an underage marriage by a Pakistani imam. Guilty.

One, a custody hearing where a 27 year old woman makes a number of allegations, including an underage marriage. No evidence, all untested allegations, and she was, most likely, in a defacto relationship. Not guilty.

The third, a woman has come out to tell all about her experience in an arranged marriage for immigration reasons. As Immigration assessed the marriage as legitimate and granted a visa, it could not possibly have been an underage marriage. Not guilty - even by the standards of proof on the Islam Board.

One thousand to go, FD. Would you like to provide any evidence yourself?

Or would you prefer to doze off when the evidence is presented and wake up every now and then to ask a question?

Karnal wrote on Mar 8^th, 2014 at 2:55pm:


he does provide evidence.  Shame he doesn't bother to read it.