PESHAWAR: The Provincial Stakeholders Seminar on Child Marriage has called on the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to enact the Child Marriage Restraint Bill to remove this deeply rooted social and traditional practice that negatively affects the lives of millions of youth.
Participants stressed that such legislation is necessary to protect children’s potential and futures, a press release said. The seminar was jointly organized by Blue Vans, National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR) and Directorate General of Human Rights.
Speakers including Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) Chairman Allama Muhammad Raghib Hussain Naimi participated in the event. Maulana Tayyab Qureshi, Chief Khatib District Peshawar. Ghulam Ali, director of the Directorate General of Human Rights. Syed Rehman, Director of Local Government KP; Imran Tucker, child rights activist; and NCHR Coordinator Muhammad Rizwan among others.
The speakers urged the provincial government to make the minimum age of marriage 18 years mandatory for both boys and girls. Participants expressed concern over the delay in legislation and emphasized that existing laws, such as the Pakistan Majority Act 1975 and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Child Protection and Welfare Act 2010, define persons below the age of 18 as children. . Therefore, any marriage below that age should be considered illegal.
Qamar Naseem, program manager of Blue Vans, said that according to data collected by international organizations, about 21 percent of girls in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are married before the age of 18, while three percent of girls in the province are married before the age of 15. It is done at the age of one year. Qamar added.
Citing data from the KP Health and Demographic Survey Report, he said 15 percent of girls become mothers before the age of 18. Similarly, he continued, 23 percent of girls in the province could not study up to class 10 because of marriage.
He said the colonial-era Child Marriage Restraint Act (CMRA) 1929 is still in force in the province, which defines a child as a person if the male is below 18 years of age and if The girl is below 16 years of age. .
He said CMRA 1929 provides for simple imprisonment up to one month or fine of Rs. 1000 or both, for contracting child marriage by a male above 18 years of age; to engage in or cause child marriage; and for parents or guardians involved in child marriage.
He said that a new law titled KP Child Marriage Restraint Bill, 2021, which proposed a marriage age of 18 for both men and women, was introduced as a private member’s bill in the KP Assembly but it has yet to be tabled. The act has not been made yet.
The law department has announced that after examining the draft law, it will return it to the social welfare department with some recommendations. Director Local Government KP, Syed Rehman told the participants that around 800 marriage registrars have been registered in the province.
Endorsing the views of the participants of the seminar, Chairman CII Allama Muhammad Raghib Hussain Naimi proposed to make the registration of identity card mandatory in the Nikah form so that the age of the bride and groom can be ascertained.
Allama Naimi was also of the opinion that the uniform child marriage law should be implemented in the country to reflect the consensus of the nation on this important issue. The participants of the seminar were told that 27 out of 34 universities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have complied with the two percent admission quota for the minority community.
Sana Ahmed of Blue Vans said that in 2021-22, only eight to nine universities in the province, both public and private, are complying with the decision to set aside two per cent quota for minority communities. However, with the combined efforts of the Blue Vans, the number of universities that were compliant had reached 27, according to NCHR and minority representatives.