National Commission on the Rights of Child is deeply concerned over the child marriage issue of a 14-year-old Dua Zehra from Sindh who allegedly contracted marriage on her own free will with Zaheer Ahmed, despite the fact that she is under-age, according to respective child marriages prohibition laws both in Punjab and Sindh.
The NCRC, in a press release issued Friday, said Pakistan is state party to many international conventions, particularly CEDAW, UNCRC which prohibit child marriages. It is one case of its kind like Arzoo case and Nimra Kazmi case in the province of Sindh.
NCRC reiterates that Child marriage is a form of child rights violation which takes away a child’s right to safe and healthy childhood, quality and complete education that can lead to decent economic opportunities, and social and political empowerment and the reasons for it should be pondered over and a possible strategy devised to curb this menace at the roots.
NCRC has called upon the Federal and Provincial Governments, parliamentarians, law enforcement agencies, civil society and concerned stake holders to sit together to devise a strategy, to review all the child marriage related laws prevalent in Pakistan to find out gaps and fill the lacunas, such as registration of child marriages, setting the minimum age of child marriages across the provinces, qualifying the age of consent and free will, declaring the illegality of child marriages through awareness raising, education, rule of law, eradication of poverty, birth control.
