As many as 131,365 girls under the age of 15 have been married in Iran over the last five years, according to official data quoted by local media.

Tejarat News on Tuesday cited data from the Statistical Center of Iran (SCI) as showing that more than 7,500 of the marriages took place during the summer of 2021.

The numbers do not include unregistered marriages, which are common in the country’s rural areas.

Under the Islamic law, or Sharia, the minimum age at marriage for girls is 13 and 15 for boys.

Since the Iranian year of 1396, which started in March 2017, an average of about 30,000 girls under the age of 15 have been married every year.

During the same period, an average of 123 boys under that age have been married in the country.

ISNA earlier reported that 791 children were born to mothers aged between 10 and 14 in the first six months of the previous Iranian year beginning in March 2021. The semi-official news agency said that most of these births took place in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan.

Earlier in March, a married teenage girl who had experienced "domestic violence" set herself on fire in Sistan-Baluchestan, according local media reports.

It was the second reported case of self-immolation by a married Baluch girl in the past few months.