Child marriages plague impoverished girls

Poverty, cultural norms continue to henna stain the hands of female children way before their age of consent

KARACHI:

Although the national obsession with female matrimony is enough to pressurize even elite parents to expedite their search for a son-in-law, for low-income families, marrying off a teenage daughter means having one less mouth to feed. Therefore, child marriages have emerged as a reprehensible yet critical survival strategy for the indigenous communities in rural Sindh.

In Sindh, the early marriage of female children has been a common practice in line with local tribal traditions. Over the years however, despite the passage of the Child Marriages Restraint Act of 2014, under which the marriage of girls under the age of 18 was banned, underage girls continue to be yoked into matrimony way ahead of their legal age. Apart from inveterate social norms, poverty too has emerged as an important factor behind this disturbingly regressive trend.

Recently, the news of 45 underage girls being married off in a single village of Dadu during the monsoon rains created a wave of speculation in the local and international media, due to which the Chief Minister of Sindh ordered an immediate investigation. It should be noted that Dadu is one of the few districts in Sindh which suffered immense financial loss in the form of crops and livestock during the stormy rains of 2022.

Zubaidah Memon, a women's rights activist from Hyderabad, told The Express Tribune that in addition to social norms, financial difficulty too dictated the early marriage of girls. "Poverty has increased tremendously in the aftermath of the 2022 monsoon rains in Sindh," noted Memon.

Expanding on the matter, Naseer Memon, a development professional confirmed that the infrastructure of the flood-affected areas was completely destroyed due to the torrential rains. "Infrastructural devastation has only aggravated the worsening poverty in these areas," said Memon.

According to the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey conducted by the Bureau of Statistics Sindh in 2018-19 with the support of UNICEF, the trend of child marriage has been higher among poor and illiterate families, with nearly 50 per cent of women aged 20 to 24 married before the age of 18 in rural Sindh, which is twice the ratio in urban areas.

According to Taj Marri, a local farmer's rights activist, girls are considered a socio-economic burden under the feudal system of Sindh. "Hence, for most parents in rural Sindh, getting their daughters married as early as possible assuages their distress. Furthermore, a lot of times baby girls are betrothed to nearby acquaintances right at the time of birth. Hence, once the girl reaches puberty, the family is under pressure to give her hand to the promised family," observed Marri.

According to data provided by the Inspector General Police Sindh to the Sindh Home Department, 57 cases of child marriage were registered in eight districts of Sindh between 2018 and 2023, with the highest number of cases, 21, reported from Dadu. Of all these incidents, the accused were punished in only three cases, while 20 were acquitted by the courts and no decision could be reached for the remaining cases, which were declared Class-C cases.

"Class-C indicates that the police could not find any evidence during the investigation and therefore stopped further action," explained Advocate Ismail Meo Rajput, who felt that the punishment of three years in prison was not implemented in Sindh. "Cases were registered in some places for violation of the law, but most of the cases could not reach their logical conclusion and the accused involved in the early marriage of girls could not be punished," concluded Rajput.