In its press statement issued here on Tuesday, the CRM urged the federal and provincial governments to implement the Child Marriages Restraint (CMR) Act 1929 and increase the minimum marriageable age for girls.
Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), a constitutional body responsible for giving legal advice to the legislature on Islamic issues, earlier this month said Islam doesn’t prohibit underage marriage.
Meanwhile talking to The Express Tribune, rights activist Dr Farzana Bari said such remarks are very disturbing for all of us.
The Act prohibits marriage of girls and boys under 16 and 18 years of age respectively but it lacks due deterrence mechanism. As a result, incidents of child marriage are alarmingly high.
National Commission on the Status of Women Chairperson Khawar Mumtaz told this correspondent that in Islam marriage is a contract between two consenting adults not between a child and an adult. Referring to the CII statement, she said “they are trying to reopen the settled issues and trying to create confusion among people.”
Every hour in Pakistan, three women die due to birth-related issues and early marriages are a key contributor to high maternal mortality ratio (MMR), the CRM statement said.
In Balochistan, the MMR is as high as 785 per 100,000 live births, which according to the CRM, is alarming. The risk of death for pregnant girls under the age of 15 is five times higher than for women in their twenties.
Mumtaz said child brides’ faces domestic violence and are also at risk of reproductive health complications, HIV/Aids infection and other adverse physiological and social outcomes.
Source/Fuente: http://tribune.com.pk/story/687147/merryage-civil-society-seeks-increase...
