April 28 (UPI) -- Female Muslim clerics issued decrees against child marriage and spousal abuse at a rare conference in Indonesia this week.
The weeklong inaugural Indonesian Women's Ulama Congress in Cirebon, West Java, ended Thursday with fatwas, or rulings based on Islamic laws, calling for Indonesia's legal age for marriage of women to increase from 16 to 18. It also declared marital rape to be "haram" or forbidden. While the edicts, issued at what is believed to be the first meeting of its kind, are not legally binding in Indonesia, they are expected to have influence in national politics, the Independent said.