Ending Child Marriage in Pakistan: A Human Rights Imperative
Despite being prohibited by the relevant laws enforced in the country, the deplorable practice of child marriages remained unabated in Pakistan. Bounding innocent children into lifelong commitments where they don’t understand what is at stake is a crime. It needs prevention from the state through the implementation of relevant laws that prohibit and discourage child marriages and serious attention from parents who are ready to tie knots of their teenage children at an immature age sans their consent.
Child marriage alludes to the union of two opposite-sex partners where one of both partners is married in their early teenage years. Child marriages are unpleasant in myriad aspects. It bounds immature individuals into an unwanted set of responsibilities and life-long commitments. Child marriage takes away the right to enjoy childhood and to seek an education that can make them independent. It results in the loss of happiness and mental peace. It affects child psychology and may hinder personal and educational growth as they have more responsibility than they can handle.
Child marriage is the result of entrenched gender inequality, making girls disproportionately affected by such practices. As a girl helplessly submits to her father’s promise, not being allowed to ask about her prospecting husband, his background, and his commitment to future marital responsibilities is a form of human rights abuse, violating the freedom and liberty of children, placing them in high risk of violence, exploitation, and abuse. In addition, Child brides are more likely to become pregnant before they physically mature to bear children, increasing risks of both maternal and newborn deaths and morbidity. For boys, Child marriage brings early fatherhood responsibilities and results in additional economic pressure in the form of providing for the household; it may also constrain the boy’s access to education and opportunities for career advancement.
According to UNICEF, there are around 19 million Child brides in Pakistan, with one in six young women married in childhood. Child marriages negatively affect Pakistan’s economy: offspring from such marriages increase the population and lead to inter-generational poverty. Pakistan will find parallels within Robert Malthus’ Principle of Population about the rapid growth of Population and its impending causes of food insecurity. According to the 17th-century English economist Thomas Robert Malthus, “Potential of Population growth is in Geometric means 2,4,8,16,32 and food production is in arithmetic means 1,2,3,4”.
It is an inescapable fact that children at minor ages are mostly unprepared developmentally to take on the burden of responsibility arising from such marriage. The underlying reasons for child marriages could be based on the interplay of economic and social forces, insecurity, lack of education, poverty, dowry, social and religious influences, and most importantly, the weak implementation of laws regarding child marriages and lack of awareness of severe consequences of child marriage.
To prevent child marriages, the government should make sure that every marriage gets registered at a government office to avoid a surge in child marriages. It will help government officers to verify their ages and provide ample opportunity to prevent it. To punish Nikkah-Sheahan and family heads participating in such nikahs, which are not according to the law, is a step to lessen child marriages.
Parents should be aware of the negative consequences of child marriages. The role of education to promote awareness of the consequences of child marriage is indispensable. Parents shall give their children proper consent to choose what is better and soothing.
The weak implementation of relevant laws that discourage and prohibit such practices impels the rise of pre-mature marriages. Implementing child marriage laws will be a bulwark against such prevailing custom.
Extreme poverty catapults parents into selling their daughters in marriage for large sums of money. The state should encourage and give incentives to individuals who abide by the law and jobs to the unemployed to alleviate poverty.
The role of radical or hardliner religious scholarship should be stifled, and they should be made part of the awareness drive to prevent child marriages as it maims their role as a productive and efficient part of society.
Marriage is not a ritual but a life-changing decision because it brings many responsibilities, parenting, building new relationships, and sacrificing time and resources. Free consent, maturity of mind and body, stable livelihood, and lifelong commitment to caring for each other are essentials for a happy and prosperous marriage.
To sum up, child marriage is a grave violation of human rights and a harmful practice that affects millions of children, especially girls, in Pakistan. It deprives them of their childhood, education, health, and freedom. It also exposes them to various risks of violence, abuse, and exploitation. Multiple factors, such as poverty, gender inequality, social norms, religious influences, and weak law enforcement, drive child marriage. To end this practice, the government, civil society, religious leaders, parents, and children must work together to raise awareness, enforce laws, provide opportunities, and empower children to make their own choices. Only then can Pakistan ensure the well-being and dignity of its future generations.
The author is a student of law at Gillani Law College, Bahauddin Zakariya University , Multan.
samiullahkakar08@gmail.com
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