Protecting young ones: ‘K-P Child Marriage Restraint Bill needs to be expedited’

Participants of meeting propose rigorous punishment for contractors.

PESHAWAR: The K-P Child Marriage Restraint Bill, 2016 must be quickly reviewed so that it can be discussed with members of the provincial assembly.

This was stated by the social welfare secretary Syed Jabbar Shah at a meeting of the working group of the K-P Child Protection and Welfare Commission. The moot was held recently at the committee room of the Department of Social Welfare.

Also present on the occasion, Child Protection and Welfare Commission Deputy Chief Ijaz Muhammad Khan briefed participants on the draft bill. He said the child marriage restraint act was introduced in 1929 by Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the legislative assembly of India under the British Raj.

Ijaz Muhammad added that the law of 1929 read that whoever is responsible for child marriage shall be punished with a month of imprisonment and a fine of Rs1,000. As per the act, the minimum age for marriage for a boy is 18 years and 16 years for a girl.

In other provinces

Although the bill was rejected by the standing committee of the National Assembly, Sindh’s provincial legislature passed it for its province.  The Sindh government ruled that the minimum age for both girls and boys was 18.

Moreover, Ijaz Muhammad said the bill for Punjab states rigorous punishment for those involved in child marriage, whereas the one for K-P only proposes imprisonment.



The child marriage restraint bill for Punjab also proposed 18 years as the minimum age. It says the violators would be fined Rs50,000, along with a six-month jail term.

Representatives of the human rights department in K-P have proposed stricter punishments for such an offense. The social welfare secretary said a fine of Rs40,000 seemed too little. The forum agreed with the proposal.

Bill review

Some points were raised when the working group reviewed the bill for K-P. As per advice of the law department, the participants said if the bill is passed with 18 years as the minimum age for marriage, the birth certificate or B-Form of the bride and groom must be presented at the time of nikkah.

Some of the participants objected over the minimum age for the girl being 16, saying it is un-Islamic. They stated the minimum age for girls and boys should be 18.

About passing the bill, it was said it should be discussed with MPAs, especially those from Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl.

The participants also proposed that the bill be discussed with the standing committee for law and parliamentary affairs so that hurdles in the law department could be dealt with.

It was also suggested that Minister for Social Welfare Sikandar Sherpao call a meeting of the parliamentary leaders of various parties, especially religious ones, so they could be briefed on the matter. Sherpao would then consult all parties and issue a final draft based on a consensus.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 11^th, 2016.