6 months ago
30
The marriage of a
12-year-old girl
to a 72-year-old man named Habib Khan was called off after successful intervention by the police in Pakistan's Charsadda town. While the police managed to arrest the groom and the 'Nikah Khwan' (a person who solemnizes the marriage), the girl's father managed to escape.
A case has been registered against the girl's father, the 72-year-old man, and the 'Nikkah Khwan' under the
Child Marriage Act
, according to ARY News.
Despite the existence of laws prohibiting child marriage, such incidents continue to occur in various parts of Pakistan.
The girl's father, Alam Syed, had reportedly agreed to sell his daughter to the elderly man for PKR 500,000.
Incidents of child marriage on the rise
In recent times, law enforcement agencies have thwarted similar attempts in Rajanpur and Thatta, where young girls were being coerced into marrying older men. In Rajanpur, Punjab, an 11-year-old girl was set to marry a 40-year-old man, while in Thatta, a young girl was forcibly married to a 50-year-old landlord before the police took action and rescued the girl.
In another incident on May 6, a 70-year-old man was arrested by the police for marrying a 13-year-old girl in Swat. The girl's father had arranged the marriage, but the police swiftly took the groom and the father into custody. The 'Nikkah Khwan' and the marriage witnesses were also arrested, and the minor girl was sent to a hospital for a medical examination.
Legal age for marriage in Pakistan
In Pakistan, the legal age for marriage differs based on gender. While the internationally recognized minimum age for both males and females is 18, the country's laws allow males to marry at 18 but permit females to wed at the younger age of 16.
Although Sindh province took a step towards gender equality in 2013 by passing legislation to raise the minimum age of marriage to 18 for both genders, this progressive change has not been adopted and implemented throughout the nation. The disparity in legal marriage age between men and women persists in other parts of the nation.
