PESHAWAR: Two teenage child rights activists on Saturday moved the Peshawar High Court, seeking to bring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s child marriage law in line with those of other parts of the country by increasing the minimum permissible marriageable age for girls from 16 to 18 years.

In a joint petition, Maham Nafees and Leena Qamar challenged a provision of the Child Marriage Restraint Act that sets the minimum marriage age at 16 for girls and 18 for boys in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

They requested the court to declare that Section 2(a) of the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929, to the extent that it prescribes different age thresholds for male and female children, is unconstitutional, discriminatory and violative of Articles 9, 14 and 25 of the Constitution.

The petitioners also sought orders for the federal and KP governments to take appropriate measures, within their constitutional and statutory powers, to bring the provincial child marriage legislation in conformity with the Constitution and table the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Child Marriages Restraint Bill in the provincial assembly.

They contended that different age thresholds violated constitutional protections regarding equality, dignity and security of person.

Respondents named in the petition included the federal government through its law secretary, the KP government through its chief secretary, the provincial social welfare secretary, the KP Child Protection and Welfare Commission, the KP Commission on the Status of Women and the provincial law secretary.

The petitioners noted that KP was the only province retaining the 16-year threshold for girls under its general child marriage law as Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan, as well as the Islamabad Capital Territory, had adopted 18 years as the minimum marriageable age for both sexes.

They said that the KP government had prepared a draft provincial Child Marriages Restraint Bill, which expressly defined a ‘child’ as a person, male or female, under 18 years of age, but it had yet to be tabled in the provincial assembly.

The petitioners said Unicef Pakistan reported in May last year that around 19 million girls and women in the country had been married before turning 18.

They also said another organisation Girls Not Brides estimated that around 18pc of young women had married before reaching the age of 18.

Citing the 2019 KP Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, the National Commission on the Rights of the Child reported that 26.3pc of women aged 20-24 in the province had married before turning 18, according to them.

The petitioners also pointed to differences within provincial laws, noting that the KP Kalash Marriage Act, 2026, sets the minimum marriage age at 18, while the provincial child protection and domestic violence legislation recognises people under 18 as children.

They said that with the imposition of emergency and governor’s rule in the province, the question of legislative reform also involved Parliament’s constitutional authority.

The petition cited judicial rulings, including a Lahore High Court decision against gender-based age distinctions in child marriage legislation, and requested the court to address a “longstanding gap in the protection of girls”.

The petitioners contended that Article 25(2) of the Constitution prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex, while Article 25(3) empowers the state to make special provisions for the protection of women and children.

They, however, argued that the impugned provision defeated the protective purpose of those constitutional guarantees.

The petitioners also said that the constitutional guarantees of security of person and dignity under Articles 9 and 14 required effective protection of female minors against premature marriage and its adverse consequences for their physical, psychological, educational and social development.

Petitioner Maham Nafees said: “I am 16 but the law gives girls my age less protection than boys. We have come to court because girls deserve the chance to study, grow up safely and decide their futures without pressure to marry.”

Leena Qamar said a girl’s rights should not depend on the province where she lived.

“We want girls in KP to have the same protection against child marriage as girls elsewhere in Pakistan,” she said.

Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2026