Poverty, weak law enforcement top causes for child marriage

Speakers call for holistic efforts to curb practice

PESHAWAR: Weak enforcement of child protection laws along with poverty is amongst the leading causes of child marriage in the province.

This was disclosed in a research on identifying the triggering factors for child marriages in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) which was launched on Wednesday.

The research has been conducted by Blue Veins, a non-governmental organisation, with assistance from the Australian government and Trocaire. It was launched in a seminar titled “Policy advocacy and research to strengthen implementation of pro-women legislation and Gender-Based Violence (GBV) response services in K-P”.



Blue Veins Programme Coordinator Qamar Naseem stated that the study had been conducted to analyse the dynamics which lead to child marriages in the province.

“This research explores the factors which promote the practice of child marriage in K-P and to look into the circumstances under which child marriages take place and what civil society, legislators and policymakers can do to end it,” he added.



The survey elaborated that traditionally most marriages are affairs which have been arranged by the elders of the family. Moreover, they are the result of weak enforcement of laws which prohibit child marriages.

However, poverty is one of the most common and widespread factors driving child marriages, especially amongst rural communities. There, parents and families often find child marriage as an opportunity to financially benefit from the union and also as an opportunity to ease the strain on their household.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 31^st, 2018.