Syed Abdul Hadi Burney
Early child marriage refers to union between two underage individuals who are made to sign a legal contract for a legal harmonization. Such union can take place formally as well as informally depending on the circumstances. These underage children are then made to live with their spouses regardless of being minors.
As per the report of UNICEF, in Pakistan, almost around 18 percent girls get married before the legal age, directly contributing to the ratio of early marriage to a greater extent.
Child marriage occurs most often in rural areas of Pakistan and the primary driving factor is poverty among the low income households where education is minimal. Whereas, in forced marriages, one or both spouses are unable to give full, free and informed consent about marriage, regardless of their age. In forced marriage one or both spouses are unable to end or leave the marriage.
In some countries children are not able to give legal consent. Therefore, all child marriages are mostly considered forced marriages. Child, early and forced marriage is a human rights violation and is against several international agreements of human rights.
According to International laws, marriage of boys and girls should be free, full and informed consent. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) recommends the minimum age of marriage to be 18 years.
Early Child and forced marriages in Pakistan occur mostly in rural and low-income households, where education is least. Its highest ratio is in Sindh (for 72% girl and 25% boys). Similarly, in KP’s tribal areas, 99% girls are victims. Moreover, huge ratios of young girls are forced to marry under the age of 18 due to socio-economic and cultural reasons.
According to UK’s Forced Marriage Unit, in 2017, at least 439 cases of child forced marriages were reported in Pakistan, ranking it on top of four ‘focused’ countries, followed by Bangladesh, Somalia and India.
CAUSES FOR EARLY CHILD AND FORCED MARRIAGE
The primary reason for early marriage is the biases against women’s education however, the impact of lack of policy enforcement cannot be ignored either.
In Pakistan, there are various causes of early child marriages. The most amongst those causes are: lack of implementation of the existing laws; children are treated like slaves; tribal and feudal structure of society; lack of awareness in the public about harmful effect of child marriages; extreme poverty; internal trafficking; and lack of will of government in implementing laws.
Child marriages have been a major cause of girls’ illiteracy or lower level of education. It can also damage the girl’s physical, mental and social health leading to serious health issues in the future.
Marriage is considered as a social act, a family matter where some parents do not consider their children’s consent for their marriage. This is most often the case when young girls are concerned, but also sometimes with young men, because parents consider marriage a social act and they consider it their duty to have their children married.
Parents feel they have to protect them and act in their best interests by having them married, and preferably at a young age.
(Syed Abdul Hadi Burney is a student of criminology as major subject with mass communication as minor subject at Karachi university. He can be reached at Ranpootahmed@gmail.com)
