Alam Syed : “Child Marriage Stopped by Cops in India”

Peshawar: In a disturbing incident that has sparked outrage, a man in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province allegedly attempted to coerce his 12-year-old daughter into marrying a 72-year-old man in Charsadda town. The man in question, identified as Alam Syed, reportedly agreed to trade his young daughter to the elderly man for a sum of 500,000 Pakistani rupees.

Thankfully, the authorities intervened just before the ‘nikkah’ ceremony took place and apprehended the groom, identified as Habib Khan, along with the ‘Nikah Khwan’ (the person responsible for officiating the marriage). However, the girl’s father managed to evade capture and flee the scene. A case has been registered against all three individuals under the ‘Child Marriage Registration Act’, as reported by ARY News. The young girl was successfully rescued and taken to a hospital for a thorough medical examination.

It is crucial to highlight that Pakistan has alarmingly high rates of child marriage, with the legal age for girls to marry set at 16. Despite existing laws, the country continues to grapple with the prevalence of such incidents. Recent efforts by law enforcement thwarted similar attempts in Rajanpur (Punjab province) and Thatta (Sindh province), where young girls were being forced into marriages with much older men.

In Rajanpur, an 11-year-old girl narrowly escaped a marriage proposal from a 40-year-old man, while another girl was coerced into marrying a 50-year-old landlord. Both girls were rescued from these dire situations. On May 6, authorities arrested a 70-year-old man for marrying a 13-year-old girl in Swat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, with the girl’s father also being taken into custody.

According to UNICEF, one in six women globally are married in childhood, with 4.6 million girls wed before the age of 15 and a staggering 18.9 million before turning 18. The consequences of child marriage encompass various aspects such as health, nutrition, fertility, mortality rates, education, workforce participation, women’s empowerment, and gender-based violence.

Poverty emerges as a significant factor influencing these decisions, particularly within underprivileged families where limited access to education and economic opportunities prevail. Boys often start working at a young age, while girls are trained for household responsibilities and pushed into early marriages within impoverished households.

Besides economic hardships, cultural norms, tribal traditions, and exchange marriages contribute to the persistence of child marriages in Pakistan. Regions like Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit Baltistan exhibit deep-rooted cultural practices that perpetuate such occurrences. Activists have called upon the government to take decisive actions to address this issue and impose stringent penalties to deter individuals from engaging in child marriages.

(with ANI inputs)