Just when you think wedding planning is a headache, Johoreans have to worry about another thing.
Couples, including non-Muslims, are required to attend a compulsory marriage course.
The minimum age of marriage in Johor has increased to 18 years old for both Muslims and non-Muslims.
The marriage course, “Modul Keluarga Sejahtera Johor” will be introduced to reduce divorce rates in the state.
Translated into “Happy Family Module” in English, it’s a family module for non-Muslims by Johor Tourism, Women, Family and Community Development Committee.
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and Darul Ta’zim Family Development Foundation (YPKDT) is developing the course.
Non-Muslim couples also need to have a pre-marriage certificate.
The alarming divorce rates was the reason the Johor state government decided to come up with various programmes to deal with the issue.
Liow Cai Tung, the chairman of Johor Tourism, Women, Family, and Community Development Committee, raised concerns over the statistics of divorce cases in her state.
She says that cumulatively, there have been 9,691 divorce cases in Johor from 2014 till now.
Crude divorce rate is the number of divorce cases per 1,000 people in an area and compared to other states, Johor does not have the highest crude divorce rate in Malaysia.
It has an average crude rate of 1.6 in the country.
The national crude divorce rate has been 1.6 for the past 2 years consecutively.
No matter the number, the intention of wanting to reduce the rates of divorce is a noble one.
CUEPACS (Congress of Unions of Employees in the Public and Civil Services) recently released a statement that financial woes were the cause of divorces in Malaysia.