A high court in Pakistan recently ordered a provincial government to remove gender-based age distinction in its child marriage law, a move aimed at deterring forced conversions and forced marriages of girls, Morning Star News reported.
Lahore High Court Justice Shahid Karim on April 15 declared as “discriminatory” Punjab Province’s Child Marriage Act of 1929, which fixed 18 and 16 years as legal ages for marriage for boys and girls respectively.
The verdict arose from petitioner Azka Wahid seeking amendments to the Child Marriage Act to avert harmful gender distinctions in accordance with the Constitution of Pakistan’s guarantee of equal rights for men and women.
‘Struck down’
Justice Karim wrote in his five-page verdict that the different ages for marriage for male and females, “being unconstitutional, are held to be without lawful authority and of no legal effect. They are struck down.”
He directed the government of Punjab Province to “issue the revised version of 1929 Act (based on this judgment) within the next 15 days and shall also upload that version on its website for information.”
Though the aforementioned law has been replaced by the Punjab Child Marriage Restraint (Amendment) Act, 2015 to criminalize child marriage in Punjab, girls and women in Pakistan are often forced to marry against their will, in some cases even before reaching the legal age for marriage. This is especially true for minorities such as Christians and Hindus.
Pakistan ranked seventh on Open Doors’ 2024 World Watch List of the most difficult places to be a Christian, as it was the previous year.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written and originally published by Morning Star News.
