Spreading Awareness: ‘Child marriage is a cognisable offence’

SUKKUR: Both male and female children suffer physically and psychologically in child marriages, said Goth Seengar Foundation CEO Nazeer Ujjan while highlighting the repercussions of underage marriages. He was speaking at a one-day workshop on issues related to child marriages. The event was organised by the Goth Seengar Foundation in collaboration with the district administration of Kashmore- Kandhkot at a primary school in Kandhkot on Monday. “This unnatural bond arranged without the consent of the couple sometime turns traumatic for the girl, as she is not physically and emotionally mature enough to become a wife or mother,” he added. Underage marriage is prohibited under the Child Marriages Restraint Act, 1929, and the amendment made to it in 2013, pointed out advocate Farzana Chahchar. However, the police often do not intervene in most cases, she claimed.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 23^rd, 2016.