Six people arrested over child marriage in Pakistan
Pakistani police have nabbed six people over brokering the marriage of a seven-year-old boy and a six-year-old girl in the eastern province of Punjab.
According to senior police official, Saifullah Khan, children’ fathers, the cleric who performed the wedding ritual and three witnesses, were all charged with violation of the Child Marriage Restraint Act on Sunday, a day after they were arrested.
They face six months of jail term and/or a fine of 50,000 rupees ($500).
The accused, however, denied that such marriage has ever taken place, yet police said that they have a video recording of the wedding ceremony.
The Child Marriage Restraint Act, passed on September 28, 1929 in the British India Legislature, set the age of marriage for girls at 14 and that for boys at 18.
Last month, Pakistani lawmakers failed to impose harsher penalties on those who arrange child marriages after their proposal was defeated by a religious body in the parliament, calling it “blasphemous,” and not compatible with what they called religious law. The proposal also sought to raise the age of marriage for girls to as old as 18.
Child marriage is still a commonplace social phenomenon in some regions of Pakistan.
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