By: Rajnikant Khatri
The Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act, 2013 and The Majority Act of 1875 hold an important perceptive when it comes to age of majority, it declared that age of majority of Pakistani is 18 years, but it excludes marriages, divorce, adoption and religious rites. A person in our society is not allowed to vote, not enter into any agreement without a Guardian if he/she is below 18 but could enter marriage contact, convert from his/her religion to another or even get divorced. What a Double standard we agreed upon!
Economic Survey was conducted, which resulted Pakistan as the sixth populous country with 2 percent growth rate annually. The pace of growth of 2 percent depicts that by 2050 Pakistan will become the fifth populated country of the world. Of this about 48 percent are children. A big number of these children includes girls, who are married in their age of 07 years old.
Child marriages are commonly driven by old school of thoughts that boys are superior to girls and gender inequality. Deeply rooted patriarchal norms also drive child marriage. For example, women are raised up to show an attitude of care and service towards men. The concept of Watta Satta (is an exchange marriage, this custom involves the simultaneous marriage of a brother-sister pair or cousins’ pair) is still prevailing and commonly practiced in Pakistan. A 2018 study on Sindh traditional practices shown that some parents marry off their girls at a young age to save the dowry amount because with the age of the girl, the amount of dowry increases.
Recently, we have heard many conversions and forced marriages cases like Aarzo Raja, Humma Younus who belongs to minority community and were under 18 which occurred without approval of parents. The impact of child marriage is far-reaching and exerts a negative impact on a marrying individual economic, educational, and health outcomes over an entire lifespan.
Developing country like Pakistan already has high mortality rates for pregnant women, pregnancy complications and childbirth lead to a woman’s death in Pakistan in every 20 minutes. Child marriage is not a single event taking place in girl’s life, it’s basically the start of harm that will extends over years. These marriages are becoming the major cost concern for the countries like Pakistan. Girls or even boys when forced to get married at early age, they must compromise mainly on their education, employment or health. But if they marry later, they have more likely to have better quality education, employment qualification and well settled living standard due to dual income.
Thus, it is high alarming time that all of us gather with productive strategies to protect young women/men from being subject to child marriages. Policies and strategies that promote youth empowerment, awareness programs for women, human wellbeing program and effective law enforcement will help to eradicate of child marriage. Individuals as well as government must make intensive efforts to empower young women and men through formal classroom education, skill based training to promote individual independence. The scope of social media and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) play their key part in spreading awareness informally about long term consequences of child marriage in Pakistan.
