K-P to criminalise child marriage

CM's aide says effective implementation will be ensured through legislation

PESHAWAR:

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to enact a law restraining child marriages in the province as the draft bill "Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Child Marriage Restraint Bill 2019" is long pending and needs cabinet approval and subsequent tabling in the provincial assembly.

This was disclosed by Special Assistant to the Chief Minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa for Population Welfare Tufail Anjum while chairing a meeting organized by UNFPA in Peshawar on Tuesday.

He said necessary legislation would also be enacted to ensure its effective implementation. "Child marriage is an important social issue, and the government is taking effective measures to address it with the cooperation of all relevant institutions."

With a significant number of child marriage cases, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is still without any legislation to effectively check underage wedlock.

According to government's Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Project, which has been launched in 10 of 38 districts of the province since 2021, child brides are the worst victims of physiological traumas and reproductive health issues compared with their counterparts married off in the age of 20 and above.

Its report says that depression, marriage adjustment, anxieties, miscarriages, feeble health and medical issues and iron deficiency are common among child marriage couples, mostly in girls.

Pakistan, which has still been exercising a slightly less than century-old Child Marriage Restrain Act of 1929, stands sixth in countries with the highest child marriage having a ratio of around 30 per cent.

Following the passage of Eighteenth Amendment in 2010, though legislation falls into the provinces' domain, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces have yet to enact such a law, which can effectively deal with child marriages.

The British-era law determines a girl's minimum age for her wedding at 16 years, and for a boy 18 years but it is lenient to deal effectively with contraveners as it punishes the latter with a jailed term of a month in maximum, and a fine not exceeding Rs1,000.

Sindh and Punjab governments have repealed Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929, and invoked Child Marriage Restraint Act in 2013 and 2015, respectively, to deal with child marriages.

Secretary Population Welfare Department Aneela Mahfooz Durrani, Director General Population Welfare Abdullah, Director Planning Imran Shah, Director Administration Salman, UNFPA National Programme Specialist Dr. Jameel Ahmad Chaudhry, and Provincial Programme Coordinator Maha Jabeen Qazi attended the meeting.