PESHAWAR: Pakistan Peoples Party MPA Nighat Yasmin Orakzai on Monday submitted a bill on child marriages in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, seeking ban on marriages of children under 18 years of age and award of up to three years of rigorous imprisonment to the violators.

According to a statement, the private member bill says that whoever, being a male above 18 years of age, contracts a child marriage shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment which may extend to three years but shall not be less than two years and shall be liable to fine.

Section 4 of the bill suggests whoever performs, conducts, directs, brings about or in any way facilitates any child marriage shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment which may extend to three years but shall not be less than two years and shall also be liable to fine, unless he proves that he had reasons to believe that the marriage was not a child marriage.

The bill also proposes punishment of parents or guardians concerned in the child marriage.

Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2021