It is estimated that 30 percent of all marriages in the country fall into the category of child marriages and statistics reveal that highest rate of such weddings is prevalent in interior Sindh. Participants of a media workshop on Child Marriages discussed these figures here on Wednesday, adding, each day more than 25,000 young girls become child brides, joining almost 60 million girls who have married before their 18 birthday globally.
Chief Executive Officer Rahnuma-Family Planning Association of Pakistan (FPAP) Syed Kamal Shah, chairing the workshop said the issue of child marriages have long been ignored by the policy makers and other key decision makers in the country. He informed that child brides are at a highest risk of sexual and physical abuse, reproductive health complications, HIV/AIDS infections and other adverse physiological and social outcomes.
In developing countries, Syed Kamal said, complications during pregnancy or childbearing has become the leading cause of death for girls aged 15-19. Director Adolescent and Women Empowerment Rehnuma-FPAP, Amna Akhsheed, giving a detailed briefing on 'Child Rights as Human Rights Violation' apprised the participants that it is one of the most wide-spread human rights violation that exits in the country.
In Pakistan, legally, Child Marriages are prohibited under the Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929, (CMRA) which emphasis that the minimum age of marriage is 16 years for female and 18 years for males, Amna stated. Whoever, being a male above 18 years of age, contracts child marriage shall be punishable with simple imprisonment which may extend to one month, or with fine which may extend to Rs 1000, or with both. What is worse is that a conviction under this law does not serve to nullify the marriage, she remarked.