LATE consolation is a norm for Pakistanis. Although welcome, a newly passed bill that demands tough laws and penalties to reduce the scourge of child marriages in Islamabad Capital Territory, and seeks rigorous imprisonment of up to three years for males over 18 who contract child marriages, is long overdue. The pattern is disturbing: for example, successive KP governments have been unable to replace the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929, as orthodox elements stalled the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Child Marriage Restraint Bill, 2021, while Punjab’s diffident attempt — the Child Marriage Restraint (Amendment) Act, 2015 — failed to repeal the marriage age in CMRA, 1929. In Sindh, juvenile marriages mount despite pro-women legislation. This dismal picture shows that girls less than 18 are permitted to marry in most of the country.

The self-appointed custodians of belief and convention reject empowerment, making it difficult for political parties to criticise child marriage, forced conversions and other atrocities in their party manifestos and poll campaigns. The deeply patriarchal undercurrents of our sociopolitical setting, too, have kept politicians from stressing on the need to abandon laws that validate child abuse as well as allow adults to coerce young girls into illegal unions. In fact, their attempts at reform are largely self-serving, crafting an anti-people state structure and environment. South Asia carries the highest burden of child marriage in the world — a sign of how activists and legislators have deserted the young.Parties can no longer restrict political narratives to blame games and political point-scoring. They must own their responsibilities and convey the dangers of these primitive practices, and pledge to implement reformist policies and laws. Child marriages deal a lethal blow to the health, security and education of females, and hurt the socioeconomic well-being of the country. Women and girls cannot remain imprisoned behind the bars of primeval social mores.

Published in Dawn, May 19th, 2025