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[DUBAI, 12 April 2010] - The advisory Shura Council in Saudi Arabia, under international pressure to curb child marriages, has voted to ratify United Nations agreements for protecting the rights of children, local daily Arab News reported on Monday. The council, appointed by the king, voted in favour of adopting two optional protocols to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) prohibiting the sale of children, child sexual exploitation and the use of children in military conflicts... Saudi Arabia ratified the UNCRC in January 1996. The UNCRC sets out the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of children and nations that ratify the Convention are bound by its provisions by international law. The Shura Council’s decision must still be approved by the king. Saudi Arabia is currently gripped by a national debate over the practice of child marriages, where parents sell daughters as young as eight years old to older men in exchange for a dowry. Many girls are sold into marriage without their consent. Western governments and rights groups have stepped up pressure on the Saudi government to outlaw the practice following a string of marriages between prepubescent girls and elderly men last year. Debate reignited last month with the news a father married off his 12-year-old daughter to an 80-year-old man in exchange for a dowry of 85,000 riyals ($22,649). The Saudi government has pledged to set a minimum age for marrying, but as yet no restrictions have come into force. Islamic sharia law, the foundation of the Saudi justice system, has no prohibition on child marriage. Further information