[JURIST] Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim [official website, in Turkish] said Tuesday that the government would withdraw a controversial bill that may have allowed men to marry girls under 18 without being guilty of sexual assault. The bill would have dismissed [Al Jazeera report] sexual assault crimes in the presence of a marital relationship and absence of physical force. The government proposed the bill to relieve the estimated 3,800 families who have undergone underage marriages according to their customs. Protests erupted, however, over concerns that the bill would lax the standards of statutory rape and introduce a loophole for child marriages. The Republican People’s Party [party website, in Turkish] became the bill’s major opponent and threatened to bring the matter to the constitutional court if necessary. The government will now bring the bill back to the commission for broad consensus.

The rights of women and girls continues to be an international rights issue. In September Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] accused [JURIST report] Nepal of not doing all it could to prevent child marriages, finding that over 37 percent of girls are still being married before age 18. In April the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in Cambodia, Rhona Smith, appealed [JURIST report] to the country to strengthen the protection of its women and the rights of its indigenous peoples. In June the UN Working Group on Discrimination against Women in Law called [JURIST report] on the world’s governments to take quick, effective steps towards ensuring women are granted equal rights to health, including reproductive and sexual health. In July Gambia and Tanzania’s governments announced [JURIST report] the end of the practice of child marriage along with prison sentences for those who continue the tradition.