The Presbyterian Church of T&T (PCTT) and the Anglican Church said they neither perform nor support child marriages as espoused by the Inter-Religious Organisation (IRO) president Brother Harrypersad Maharaj.
The churches have instead thrown their support for the proposed initiative by the Government to review the law and align the age of marriage with the legal age of consent and adulthood in T&T.
The PCTT also called on all citizens, especially parents and guardians, to be vigilant and work together to protect the nation's children from harm in all its forms.
In a statement yesterday, general secretary of the Presbyterian Synod, Aphzal S Ackbarali, said its representative, the moderator of the synod, was neither informed nor invited to the meeting at which the decision to support child marriage was taken.
Anglican Bishop, The Right Reverend Claude Berkley, said Anglicans did not vote on that resolution as there was no Anglican representative at that meeting.
Ackbarali said neither were they consulted for an input afterwards.
He added: “As such, we firmly state that our church does not hold to views expressed in the subsequent statement issued by the head of the IRO, Bro Harrypersad Maharaj, in defence of child marriage.
“Our church holds firm to the belief and practice that marriage is considered a holy expression of love between consenting adults, which requires a level of responsibility that cannot be expected from children as young as 12, 14 or 16.
“Neither do we condone statutory rape, which is a very real possibility enflamed by legalised child marriage.”
He said while child marriage disproportionately impacted more girls than boys, both genders were negatively affected and were deserving of protection from those archaic laws and social predators.
As a member church of the World Council of Churches (WCC), he said the PCTT, “supports the world-wide initiatives to improve child well-being and engage our communities in defending the rights of the child.”
He added: “In this light, we believe that child marriage is inherently detrimental to the life and development of the persons involved.
“Child marriage directly conflicts with the rights of the child to leisure and an education and poses threats to their safety from exploitation and abuse.
“From our Christ-centered belief of life in abundance for all, we cannot support a practice that has been shown to cause the disruption of education, complications with overall health and well-being and triggers sexual and domestic violence.”
Berkley said the current debate on the topic had to be seen in light of the Marriage Acts on the law books.
He said while there were marriage acts which governed the conduct of Hindu, Muslim and Orisha marriages, where there was an age of consent of 12-year-olds “Anglicans and other Christians are authorised to perform marriages under the Civil Marriage Act which carry an age of consent of 18 years.
“The Anglican Church would not perform marriages of this age group and does not support the practice. We would support efforts to adjust the age of consent upwards,” he added.