Restraining child marriages: Religious groups against raising minimum age

MPA Hakim says raising minimum wage will benefit women’s health

LAHORE:

Provincial Assembly Member (MPA) Mary Gill of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) said on Tuesday that the Parliamentary Youth Caucus wanted to raise the minimum age stipulated in the Child Marriage Restraint Act.

Gill expressed her reservations regarding the Act at the 13th meeting of the caucus. She said this was something the caucus had wanted to do but was not been able to in the past. Gill said the caucus wanted to make CNICs mandatory for registration of marriages in a bid to ensure that both individuals were adults.

She said an amendment to this effect had not been introduced due to the influence of religious organisations. “The Act was passed in its original shape dating back to 1929 with the exception of a few changes. It is crucial to keep on amending it in accordance with the needs of changing times,” Gill said.

Read: Child bride faces $25,000 fine for rejecting marriage

Other lawmakers present on the occasion concurred with her saying using the medium of the caucus would garner more support on this account. MPA Nabila Hakim of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) said the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) had opposed raising the minimum age in the Act. She expressed her support for the proposal saying such a move would significantly benefit women’s health. “A large number of women die during childbirth as they are too young to give birth to children,” Hakim said. She said raising the minimum age would also play a pivotal role in making women financially independent.

The lawmakers also expressed concern over the fact that no concrete vision statement or work agenda of the caucus had been formulated despite the passage of over a year since its inception. They observed that the exercise ought to be more result-oriented.

MPA Makhdoom Jawan Bakht of the PML-N said the caucus should define four to six key objectives and formulate a plan to realise these by 2018.

He said it was crucial to ensure that research was carried out to identify important issues impacting youngsters and ways of overcoming them to facilitate the introduction of relevant legislation. MPA Saira Iftikhar of the PML-N concurred with Bakht and said projects should be spread out over a six-month, one-year and two-year period to chart visible progress.

MPA Vickas Mokal of the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) told The Express Tribune that a delay in caucus meetings had slowed work down. Mokal, who is also the chairperson of the caucus, said organisations supporting the caucus had to effectively liaise with one another to ensure that it met more often.

 

Read: Punjab cracks down on child marriage

He assured those present on the occasion that he had met various officials of international non-government organisations (NGOs) to discuss their involvement and support for the caucus. Mokal said he had also reached out to the NGOs in a bid to peruse best policy practices regarding youngsters abroad. He said it was arduous to consolidate issues relevant to youngsters since they happened to be multidisciplinary in nature. Mokal said they encompassed sectors such as education, health, environment and economy.

The meeting was organised by Bargad and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Published in The Express Tribune, June 25^th, 2015.