Law and culture

In a move that was long overdue, the Senate Committee on Human Rights has approved an amendment to the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929 that raises the minimum age of marriage for girls to 18, bringing it to parity with that of boys. The amendment still has some way to go as it first has to be approved by the federal cabinet and then presented to parliament for a vote. A previous iteration of this amendment had been rejected by the National Assembly in 2017, but there is some hope it may pass this time as the government has said it has no objections.Child marriage is an objectively pressing problem. The United Nations Population Fund estimates that one-third of Pakistani girls are married before they turn 18. It should be intuitive that children are not emotionally capable of dealing with marriage but there is also a wealth of research showing that to be the case. As always, the risk is far greater to girls. Teenagers are far more likely to suffer complications – including fatal ones – from childbirth than women in their 20s. Worldwide, the age group of married women and girls who suffer the greatest proportion of domestic abuse is the 15-19 bracket. Indeed, the very institution of child marriage should be seen as a form of abuse.Even if the amendment ends up becoming law, there is a long way to go before we are close to eliminating the institution of child marriage. Hidebound customs like vani, swara and watta satta still exist and many continue to believe that marriage is permissible once puberty is reached. Sindh is the only province that already stipulates that the minimum age of marriage be 18 for both girls and boys after it passed the Child Marriage Restraint Act in 2014. Yet it is believed that the highest number of child marriages still take place in the province. NGO Sahil was able to track 557 cases of child marriage from 2012 to 2016; out of those 274 took place in Sindh. Yet since its passage less than 60 cases have been registered under the Child Marriage Restraint Act and it is not clear how many of those led to prosecutions. Changing the law is a necessary first step but politics is downstream of culture and until a culture that accepts child marriages is rejected the lives of millions of young girls will still be at risk.

from The News International - Editorial http://bit.ly/2TkMPu8