Let the protectors of child rights know these laws to help such victims.
RAWALPINDI: Your report of April 8 titled “12-year-old seeks divorce from husband, 35” shows yet another glaring example of the torture resulting from unlawful and forced child marriages. The law provides full opportunity to the minor girl — married against her will in January 2011 — to seek a legal remedy, because it is an offence to marry a female under 16 years of age, for which punishment is provided under Sections 4 to 6 of the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929.
Besides, the girl will be entitled to obtain a decree under Section 2 of the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1939, for the dissolution of her repudiated marriage, on the grounds that she was given in marriage before she attained the age of 16 years.
Let the protectors of child rights know these laws to help such victims.
Jameel Bhutto
Punjab Law College
Published in The Express Tribune, April 9th, 2011.
