Early and forced marriages: Madadgaar National Helpline concerned about increasing number of cases
- February 27, 2015, 11:43 am
- Breaking News
- 293 Views
HQ City Report
QUETTA: The Madadgaar National Helpline (MNH) Quetta’s office bearers have expressed their concern over increasing number of early and forced marriages in the country.
Addressing a joint press conference at the Quetta Press Club the other day, the officials of MNH Quetta, Ms. Shahida Rehman and Ms. Saima Jaffar said that the early and forced marriages’ ratio is increasing day by day in the country with 102 such cases reported from Balochistan. Also present on the occasion were the representatives of Child Rights Movement, Sayed Jaffar Ali, Legal Advisor Social Welfare department, Waseem Kamran and Nusrat Afghani.
They pointed out that according to the Madadgaar data base, at least 706 boys and girls fell prey to the forced and early marriages in the country during the year 2013.
They were included: 264 cases in Punjab, 199 in Sindh, 143 in Khyber Pakhtunkhw and 102 cases in Balochistan, they mentioned.
Ms. Shahida and Ms. Saima also mentioned that a total of 684 cases of forced and early marriages had been reported in 2012.
The office bearers of the Madadgaar Helpline on the occasion also highlighted the national and international laws that forbid parents and couples to get married before they attain the age of 18 years, they maintained.
They mentioned that Pakistan is signatory to the international charters that forbid it. “Every religion including Islam has given right to girls to marry at willâ€, they maintained.
They further told the media persons that after the 18th constitutional amendment in 2010, child protection and child rights are considered as the provincial subject, therefore at provincial level, the civil society organizations, networks and anti-child marriage parliamentarians have been putting their efforts either to introduce new law to ban child marriages or amend the existing Child Marriage Restraint Act.
The proposed bill (the Child Marriage Restraint (Amendment) Bills) at the federal and provincial levels proposes strict penalties and sentences against perpetrators and increase the age of girl from 16 to 18 years.
They said that Madadgaar National Helpline in Balochistan, Punjab, Sindh and KPK is supporting the efforts to bring amendments in Child Marriage Restraints Act 1929.
We appreciate Punjab assembly initiative to pass the resolution on early and forced marriages but there is a lot of work ahead. We strongly hope that this bill would not be in vacuum and government would provide finance human resource and other necessities on emergency basis.
The Helpline Quetta appreciate the lead taken by Sindh assembly, in this regard, they said that Sindh assembly had done a wonderful job through promulgating Sindh child Marriage Restraint Act 2013 but the law still needed to be implemented in letter and spirit as the cases of early and child marriages in Sindh have not been decreased yet, they maintained.
In Balochistan, Women Development department (WDD) had taken the initiative and for proper legislation, they recalled adding they noted that however, the WDD requested the Aurat Foundation to prepare draft in this regard. the WDD and the AF jointly prepared the draft, but the objection was raised from the government that Social Welfare Department approves all the bills related to women so draft was revised and now it is prepared to move in the assembly.
They also mentioned that the Madadgaar is creating awareness among the influential, lawyers, parliamentarians and other concerned authorities to create enabling environment to pass new Act from rest of the assemblies like Sindh.
Moreover, a documentary has also been prepared on the issue of early and forced marriages to help understand and highlight the issue. It would be released shortly, they added.
