IN Pakistan, enacting legislation to increase the minimum marriageable age to 18 years is an important first step towards eradicating child marriage by 2030 — the target set by the UN SDGs.

There is also an overwhelming need to address the underlying factors driving this harmful practice, which include economic deprivation.

This is the basis of a new study by a KP-based non-profit that found child marriage to be rampant in the province.

Read more: How Pakistan is failing its child brides

Focused on seven districts (Peshawar, Mardan, Mansehra, Shangla, Bannu, Swat and Dera Ismail Khan), the report noted that poverty, gender inequality, lack of access to education and employment, and misogynistic attitudes towards girls perpetuate child marriages and risky births.

While there are no short-term fixes, one solution for eliminating child marriage is to keep girls in schools.

Militant attacks on education that exacerbated girls’ dropout rates in KP could likely have also contributed to early marriages.

With 21pc of girls married by 18 in Pakistan, the next set of elected provincial governments must prioritise implementation of child marriage laws.

On its part, after the polls, KP should enact legislation to punish families that marry off their underage children and individuals who officiate at such marriage ceremonies.

While such a provincial draft bill remains with the Council of Islamic Ideology, the authorities must not submit to the interpretation of conservative lobbies at the cost of young girls’ lives.

The legal age for adulthood is 18 years — the age to vote and drive; the minimum marriageable age for girls must be the same across the country.

Taking Sindh’s progressive child marriage legislation as a model, lawmakers should revise the federal Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929, and the Punjab Child Marriage Restraint (Amendment) Act, 2015, both determining the marriageable age for girls at 16 and 18 for boys.

It must be reiterated that ending this detrimental practice will have a positive effect on girls’ educational progress, contribute to women having fewer children, and increase overall socioeconomic prosperity.

Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2018