“Pakistan has not enacted any law to regulate the marriage and divorce of its Hindu citizens, though they can opt to get their marriages registered under The Special Marriage Act 1872, but no effective measures have been taken so far to implement this law either,” said a report based on research by Advocate Maroof Mittha by Community World Service- Asia.
The Hindu Jati population in Pakistan, according to estimates, is around 2.9 million strong with a majority living in Sindh where their number is estimated at 2,683,633.
Pakistan, after its inception, re-enacted laws regulating marriage formulated by its colonial rulers. Most of the laws in force today, especially those related to non-Muslims, were promulgated before the 1947 partition. The Muslim family laws were comprehensively revised in 1961 and reforms were brought on by the Muslim Family Law Ordinance, 1961 and the West Pakistan Family Courts Act, 1964. But negligible progress has been made to update or provide for laws relating to religious minorities.
Among religious minorities of Pakistan, Christians and Parsis have laws regulating their marriage and divorce issues, while other religious communities are governed according to their own customs and personal laws.
Several bills have been introduced in the National Assembly by Dr Darshan and Ramesh Lal in 2014 over the subject, and Ramesh Kumar Vankwani from PML-N introduced the Hindu Marriage Registration Act, 2014 with a focus on registration of marriages and prohibition of forced conversions. But they are still pending. “The dissolution of Hindu marriage is primarily based on the principles of customary usage and judicial separation. Some legal experts treat this judicial separation as absolute dissolution of marriage but variance in customary usage is discriminatory to women,” the report said.
It pointed out that most Pakistani Hindus reside in Sindh, and the province has restricted the minimum age of marriage to 18 years but since this law cannot annul an underage marriage, it fails to serve the objective of checking child marriages.
“Since no marriage registration document is issued by the government, it is almost impossible for Hindus to prove marriages before courts.”
Published in The Express Tribune, December 10th, 2014.
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Aww geez. dont worry about making new laws for Hindus in pak. The rate at which their annihilation is going on , very shorlty very few will be remaining - so few that their num wont matter as they wont form a consistent vote bank . When Pak was formed the H population was 22% and today its 1%. That should speak volumes about the WHITE in the flag of Pak.
Instead of having separate marriage laws for each religious community in Pakistan, why not just have one single civil marriage law for all communities?