Blogger in the Surkhandarya province, A. Sh., was fined 4 basic calculation units (1.5 million soums) for a footage encouraging early marriages.
In the video published on Instagram, Zh. N., 21, and S. R., 19, pretended to be 17- and 15-year-old parents of two children.
At the request of the children's ombudsperson, Surayo Rakhmonova, the district police department sent documents on the case to the Termez city criminal court to qualify the blogger's actions.
The court brought A. Sh. to administrative liability under Dissemination of false information charge and imposed a fine of 4 basic calculation units (BCU= 375 thousand soums). Spouses Zh. N. and S. R. were warned about the inadmissibility of such actions.
The marriage age for men and women in Uzbekistan is 18 years (in 2019, it was raised for women from 17 to 18 years). In the presence of valid reasons in exceptional cases (pregnancy, birth of a child, declaration of a minor as fully capable), mayor of district or city at the place of state registration of marriage can cut the marriage age, but not more than by one year.
In 2016, the civil registry offices registered the marriage of 4,233 girls aged 17, in 2017 - 4,853, in 2018 - 5,123. In 2021, it was reported that after lowering the marriage age for women, the number of marriages of 17-year-old girls decreased in 2020 by 97% to 88 cases.
