The Marvi Rural Development Organisation (MRDO) organised a multi-stakeholders meeting in Sukkur on the issue of early child marriages in District Khairpur Sindh.
The objective of this session was to highlight the overall issues related to child marriages and forced marriages which are taking place in interior Sindh.
Speaking on the occasion, speakers said that child marriages which is deeply rooted in Sindh’s tradition, culture and customary practices, however, child marriage remains a widespread practice across Pakistan as well. They urged to prevent child marriage a wide range of individuals and organisations, from community leaders to police has to take concrete actions.
A first step is to inform parents and young people about the negative implications of child marriages so they can choose to prevent it. For this purpose, education is a key in this process.
Persuading parents to keep their daughters in school is critical for the overall development of girls – and in the postponement of marriage.
Saira Ahmed working on women, peace and security while sharing her address said that “A large number of girls leave schools, secondary education due to their vulnerability to be married off in tender age besides distanced schools from villages, lack of transportation, poor safety and security and lack of sufficient infrastructure and basic water and sanitation service in schools.”
She said that Pakistan has signed and ratified a number of international commitments (binding and non-binding) including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) 1990 and CEDAW UN Human Rights Charter (1945), the Beijing Declaration and the ICPD. These all commitments talk about the child marriages but poor implementation of laws results in a high number of child marriages in Sindh.
She further said that Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act 2013 (SCMRA) is not properly being properly implemented here in Sindh. However, under this law district monitoring committees are notified but they are just on the papers and have poor response at local level. The committees need more institutional support to act as effective platform to prevent early marriages. Most importantly police officials are not much aware about the law.
Salman Ali, MRDO manager programs said: “We all know that the country failed to achieve its millennium development goals related to maternal and child health but Pakistan is among the first states who proposed a target to end child marriage by 2030 in discussions of the open working group on the sustainable development goals, a major inter-governmental process. This is a challenge for up-coming Sindh government for taking up this issue.
He said that Sindhi women are often economically and politically marginalised, they are made increasingly vulnerable to gender-based violence. Of the many forms of gender-based violence, child marriage is the most harmful, depriving young women of their basic rights and rendering them vulnerable to physical and psychological abuse. The young age brides and their limited power in decision-making (sexual, financial, or otherwise) leave them financially and socially insecure, he said. He urged the administration and up-coming government to take severe notice of this issue.
Ghulam Sughra, MRDO CEO said that forcing children, especially girls into early marriage can be physically and emotionally harmful it violates their rights to personal freedom and growth. Yet until now there has been virtually no attempt to examine child marriage as a human rights violation in and of itself. The meeting was attended by large number of social workers from different segments of society.
