When Childhood Is Cut Short – The Unseen Tragedy of Child Marriage in Pakistan
In the age of the internet, when dreams are tagged through the hashtag and other aspects of our lives are live-streamed, a sickening new phenomenon has been noticed to be celebrated in public in Pakistan, child marriage. On Tik Tok and Instagram, we are now met daily with the images of teen couples, well still in middle school, but in bridal gowns with camera crews, music, and makeup. The comment section is full of MashAllah, True love and couple goals, as viewers grin and move on. What can be easily forgotten though is this smiling mask behind which there is a silent crisis.
Child marriage is not a secret anymore that is cornered in rural areas in Pakistan or discussed hush-hush in same-tradition families. It is a thing that is being celebrated even in broad daylight, which is being glamorized to gain more likes, more fame, and a little bit of digital attention. Viral videos of teenage brides and grooms have an even darker backstory – the killing of childhood, the killing of opportunity, the crippling of potential in a whole generation of people.
Although it may seem to be a happy and accepting illusion, child marriage is a major human rights violation and a national emergency, which unfortunately will continue to trouble the Pakistani society in the future as well. The United Nations children fund further reports that Pakistan has over 1.9 million child brides. This is not a statistic, it is a mass catastrophe and the decades-long civilization coagulation, policy ignorance and social silence. It is a crying truth that children and especially girls are still being punished in the consequences of decisions that they did not make.
The article attempts to discover the numerous dimensions of this problem: the mental trauma, the physical and medical danger, the loss of education, the misuse of religion purposes, the institutional breakdown, and the necessity of mass and legislative change. However, before exploring the impact, one needs to know the origins of the problem as well as the reasons it has continued to exist in present-day Pakistan.
A custom burdened in Injustice
Here’s what you need to know:
Child marriage is regarded by many families as a cultural norm, obligation of friends or neighbors, or the prevention of the loss of honor. Girls get married off at an early age in order to prevent pre-marital relations, ease off the financial pressure, or even resolve family conflicts. The boys also in some instances are forced into marriage so as to put a stop to their naughty ways or to earn manhood due to lack of education, job and emotional maturity.
The irony is however, in the fact that such reasons are ill founded, and socially unconstructive. The so-called tradition is actually nothing but a reflection of continuing patriarchal rule, poverty and wrong interpretation of values. Child marriage is not a remedy, it is a social malady in the name of responsibility.
In others such unions are marriages that allow protection to the future of the girl when the feelings making the family socially vulnerable. In others they are pushed by economic desperation. The younger the bride, the cheaper the dowries and a family that has more than one daughter might regard marriage as a freedom to the costly education upkeep, health and safety of the girl child.
Whatever the cause the outcome is nearly always the same: a child, usually a girl, is removed out of school, denied her dreams, gets married off to a person equally ill equipped and is forced to assume a life of undue responsibilities.
The New Face of the Evil: Glorification by Social Media
Although child marriage is a perennial problem in South Asia, the emergence of social media in the case of Pakistan is particularly disturbing. What used to be considered a taboo or a secret affair has become a show of the public advertising content. Engagement ceremonies, bedroom settings, wedding photo shoots and even after pregnancy updates are recorded by young couples as they collect applause and adulation via their online profiles.
Such depictions idealize and make child marriage something that is normal to the society. They give the illusion that those kinds of unions are non-hurtful, pure and even good. This is not true, actually, most of those marriages are divorced, beaten, insane, or poor. However, the damage has already been inflicted -millions of people watched the fairytale and swallowed it as common sense.
Algorithms of the social media are morally blind. They intensify what interests, whether with or without implications. It is a shame that what this therefore implies is child marriage has now acquired a platform where it is no longer only surviving; but flourishing.
It Can Not Be Called a Rural Problem, It Is a National Problem
Another big myth that has to be broken is that child marriage occurs in isolated villages or uneducated households. Nothing can be farther to the truth.
Although close numbers of it can be represented by the percentages in rural communities since they do not have access to education or healthcare, child marriage is not a rural issue, it is a national one. It has become present in the middle-class households, in the metropolitan towns and among the literacy society. It cuts across religions, sects, provinces and even languages. It is both a Karachi problem as well as a Tharparkar problem. It is discovered in the suburbs of Lahore and the towns of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
It is not a geography problem; it is an attitude and attitude is dangerously prevalent.
Where the Law fails the Children
The system of law regarding marriage in Pakistan is broken and lacks uniformity and it is very even hazardous. The marriage age set by the law in Sindh is 18 years both among boys and girls. However, the age is yet to be changed to 16 in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, another loophole that has been loosely used. There is no consistent federal legislature, which is confusing and leaves the gates open to manipulation, fraud, and abuse.
They are also not very well executed even in those areas where laws are in place. Police men tend to brush off the complaints like a family affair. Registrars look the other way. Religious clerics go ahead to conduct nikkahs without confirming the age. The consent of the girl is not kept in most cases or followed. Better, the children (girls, in particular) are punished by their own family when they refuse or else they run away (secluded, physically made obedient or violated on the basis of honor).
The state that is charged with constitutional responsibility of dealing with the safety of its children has consistently failed. Not only this negligence is harmful, it is a crime.
The necessity of Immediate Negotiation and Activity
We say that youth are the future in Pakistan. We spend money on the campaign of the empowerment of women and educating girls. However, these campaigns are ineffective when we are also letting the same girls get married at a young age of 14, impregnated at 15, and divorced by the age of 16. What future are we going to offer them when the present is not left to the future but is snatched before it is even given?
Child marriage is not a simple problem and it is nuanced but it does not imply that it is unsolvable. Nations such as Nepal, Ethiopia, even Bangladesh which used to record higher numbers of child marriage have achieved a lot by amending the laws, educating the communities, and using the media. Pakistan is able to do the same. However, we have to understand in the first place that the practice of child marriage is not a family affair. It amounts to a violation of human rights, a community-wide health issue, an inhibitor of education, and a perpetrator of structural gender violence.
A kingdom at a Cross Road
This is the point in the history of Pakistan when a choice is being offered. Are we letting children become the instruments of tradition, the prizes of celebrity or are they the people who suffer in silence? Or are we, as a society, as a state finally coming up to guard those who are unable to guard themselves?
In many cases a child is married each time and hence a future gets buried.
A Dream in Exchange of childlike freedom
Marriage is a life transforming point of decision that needs to be emotionally mature, financially stable and psychologically prepared. However, most of these conditions are absent when it comes to child marriages. Boy children, who are mostly not yet made independent through schooling and education are married off with no jobs, life, nor the knowing of responsibility. Girls are saddled more since they are being dragged out of schools, being required to manage households, and compelled to become mothers when they are not even temperamentally or physically mature to do so.
In these marriages, the two partners are ill prepared to deal with conflict, relationships and to support one another. The end result is frequently early divorce, psychological problem, or life-long trauma. The emotional and psychological child development gets totally disrupted. They are thrust in roles they do not understand and do not become who they were meant to be because they have no knowledge about who they are.
The Physical Dangers When Girls Have Babies Too Young
Maybe the most terrifying effect of child marriage is premature pregnancy. The body of a girl is not prepared biologically to give birth up until late teens or the early twenties. However in Pakistan thousands of under age girls give birth to children each year put in danger both their own life as well as those of their infants.
According to medical data, girls under 18 are at serious risk to be in trouble during the pregnancy process, such complications include undergone labor, hemorrhage, anemia, and in some cases, maternal deaths. They too have high chances of giving birth to premature babies or to ones with health complications. A child that gives birth to a child is not only unnatural, but it is a tragedy and it is a repeated tragedy of silence.
These girls are not only deprived physically, but also the only opportunities they could use. They are lonely, many rely on their in-laws, or have no access to maternal care or psychiatric service. They had babies to bear instead of playing, learning, and developing; this drains their bodies as well as their future.
The Girl Price of Lost Learning and Liberation
As soon as a girl is married, her education happens to be the first victim. When a girl joins a marital home she is regarded as irrelevant to school in many communities. This does not only deprive her the opportunity to establish a career or to become financially independent, but it undermines the intellectual fabric of the society.
The uneducated mother will tend to bring up uneducated children, and another cycle of poverty, illiteracy, and lack of openings are formed. The act of child marriage retains girls into a state of dependency and silences them in terms of economical, social as well as political voice. They are not given even the tools which can lift and support their families and their communities.
It is not only personal loss but national loss as well. Nations that have a high rate of child marriage experience low labor force participation, increased maternal death cases, and economical growth sustenance. Comparatively speaking, there is an opportunity loss in any case of early marriage.
The Misuse of Religion: The Reality behind the Excuse
Religious teachings are also misconstrued as an excuse to many families to marry off their children. This is not a thought and a belief which is encouraged or promoted even by Islam, Christianity or Hinduism. These are not at all divine commands but cultural practices.
There needs to be maturity, competence, and consent in marriage in Islam. Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon Him) himself preached about compassion, patience and respect as a marriage. He stressed on the significance of comprehension and equity- two values that cannot be practiced between married children. In the same way, in Christian faith and other kinds of beliefs, children are at the top when it comes to safeguarding children.
Forced or child marriages in the name of religion also devalues the moral foundation of practicing religion and propagates evil tradition under the pretext of religiosity.
Types of Cultural Pressures and Social Media Role
Nowadays the culture does not live in the local customs but it is created by what we can see online. The location has been facilitated by such platforms as YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook because the marriages of children are not only acceptable there, but valued. The weddings of teenagers go viral on social media, get millions of views, heart emojis, and compliments, even though they are extremely harmful and mostly unlawful.
This online celebration of child marriage is misleading the society. It conveys the idea that a wedding dress and viral video is more valuable than education, safety or mental health. The families either because they intend to gain fame or acceptance into the society push the children into marriages just to be visible.
This should be identified, controlled and deleted. It is the responsibility of the social media platforms to behave in a responsible manner and the viewers should learn how to enquire and not applaud what they are seeing.
The reason why it is everyone responsibility
Child marriage is not a family concern only. It is a health emergency, an educative emergency, a legal/legal debacle and a failure of moral courage. It touches all communities Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Sikh, poor and rich as well as urban and rural.
This requires joint effort to put an end to it.
Religious community leaders
They should speak out against child marriage, sensitize their churches, and should decline to preside over the underage marriages. What they say counts and they should use it to defend and not to destroy.
Education Establishments & The Educational Professional
The schools must be a safe place where children must be educated regarding their rights, equality among genders, and their health. The teachers should be sensitized to identify the red flags of forced or early marriage and how to report the same.
Influencers & Media
Teenage weddings have to be stopped being romanticized. Online content creators should be made responsible of their posting. The involvement of girls, boys that are well educated and women that enjoy healthy relations should be emphasized as opposed to making child marriage seem enticing.
Parents
What then should be comprehended by parents most of all is that being married is not a means to escape poverty or disgrace. Education is. Believe in the dreams of your children and not your fears. Shut them not up with marriage–lift them up with a prospect.
The Role of the Government: What Must Be Done Now
A crucial role should be played by the government and it should not be demonstrated, but rather dramatic.
- Apply a Standard Legal marrying Age of 18 Across the States
The same law has to be adhered to by all provinces. No exceptions. No loopholes.
- Enforcement and Penalties Strict penalties and strict enforcement are the main requirements of modern crimes.
Child marriage should be considered as a criminal act. Religious leaders, witnesses and parents should be legally punished. Such cases have to be expedited by the courts.
- Awareness of the Issue Students The population awareness campaigns on the issue-students The issue should be properly supported with the help of the student-population awareness campaigns.
Convert the attitude of the population through national media. Focus on real life accounts of what harm child marriage does. Encourage education, not marriage.
- Rewards to Female Education
Provide the families with scholarships, stipends and school meals that would motivate them to retain their daughters in schools. Design girl programs on those who have already dropped out as a result of early marriage.
- Survivor Support Systems
Establish safe homes, counseling agencies, and legal assistance programs among the girls who run away due to forced marriages or domestically violent families.
Conclusion: The crisis of which a national awakening is urgently necessary.
Child marriage in Pakistan is more than just a cultural custom or a family choice, it is a national crisis, and it is killing the future of some of the children each and every year. The truth behind all those so called viral videos of weddings of all those young teenagers is not at all glamorous. It leads to a world of missed childhood, shattered dreams, mental trauma, life risk attached to the mother and a lifetime of addiction and depression.
We have to realize that marriage is not a social contract or a celebrating party but the lifelong love that needs emotional intuition, mind preparation, wealth, and personal maturity. To demand this of a child, boy or girl, is to be unreasonable; but is also unjust. It is exploitation and no civil society that has moral consciousness can stand to tolerate or normalize it any more.
The enigma of this is a tremendous letdown in security; security by the family, security by schools, by neighborhoods, by the religious leadership, by the law enforcement and the government. And the greatest casualties in this failure are the children or girls especially who not only lose their rights but also the right of a voice.
An immeasurable Loss
What the girl forfeits when she is married off at an early age before the age 18, is not quantifiable in numbers and percentages. She loses:
Her studies
Her right of choice
- Body control
- Her roller-coaster development of feelings
- Her career and aspirations in the future
- Her voice within a marriage which was not desired by her
And in this loss, the society also losses. We waste a doctor, a teacher, a scientist, a leader a person who might have contributed to our total power, and who instead was needed before his time in the interest of habit or ease.
So, when teenage boy is compelled to marry, he must assume responsibilities that he has not been prepared of. He does not even know what consent is, what financial ability is, what conflict resolution is. He turns into a husband who is just on paper and a child in actions. Abuse, abandonment, and emotional dysfunction do not remain rare in such cases; they are the norm.
Thus, one needs to pose the question: Why do we keep on letting this cycle of loss, destruction, and remorse to keep on recurring itself?
Convention Is Not a Permit to Evil
Child marriage is frequently justified with the help of such phrases as: it is our tradition, our way in the family, or even our religion. This argument is however not justified as soon as we oppose it to the reality.
The customs are supposed to transform. This is simply because something was executed in the past does not necessarily mean that it would be right in present times. We do not accept slavery anymore, we do not want to see public flogging or child labor, because we understand that human rights should develop with human understanding.
On the same note, it is misleading and risky to use religion to demand child marriages. None of these religions- Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, or Sikhism encourage and compel their members to marry off young underage kids. Religious texts are misused by using them to justify some cultures and this makes matters even worse instead, the texts are disrespectful to the faith.
Take the example of Islam, the religion gives utmost priority to consent, maturity, education, respect and protection during marriage. At the age of 14 and 15, a boy and a girl are not even emotionally mature enough to offer informed consent. Presenting the religion a false face in order to permit such unions is not religious observation–it is the act of manipulation.
Social Media: A Double-Edged Sword
Child marriages used to be done in the background previously. These days they are sold as digital entertainment. These applications (Tik Tok, Instagram, YouTube, etc.) are full of cute teen couples getting married, cutting cakes, showing them bedroom arrangement all in the name of #relationshipgoals.
However, there is another dark side behind all such videos, and it is the fact that there is a child groomed into a role that he or she does not comprehend. Such marriages are usually fame marriages and not love marriages. These are instruments of social media interaction- they are not life-long commitment. And when the moving image wears off, reality comes as it is: divorce, depression, domestic violence and even death.
Worst of all, most families get to voluntarily trap their kids in viral marriages in search of fame, presents, and popularity. In the process, they do not only jeopardise their child but also thousands of other children watching them as they start perceiving this as a normal behaviour.
It is crucial to comprehend the fact that virality is fleeting. Child marriage damages the victim forever.
The silence of the Government is Deafening
Even when the crisis has been very clear, the reaction of the state of Pakistan has been irregular at best and callous at worst. Although Sindh has increased the legal marriage age to 18 years, some others like Punjab and KP maintain an option to marry a girl at 16 years of age, which has remained an open option being exploited.
In Pakistan, there are no consistent federal rules which establish the legal age as 18 among both sexes. In some areas laws are weak, even where there are laws. Families will bribe local registrars, clerics will overlook the age restrictions and police will show no interest in any matters. Most of the time, when girls attempt to fight off they are accused of bringing shame to the family, and either silenced, or in worse cases, attacked.
The only thing that Pakistan needs is not merely legislation but leadership.
We must have a government which is bold enough to:
Outlaw marriages below 18 years
- Punish those parents, church and registration staff who are offending the law
- Establish domestic law child protection departments
- Shelter and protection to under age girls who are running away to forced marriages
- Introduce a national media campaign to shift the opinion
School scholarships, vocational training and community incentives should be provided in order to retain girls in school
Unless we take action soon and in a very courageous way, Pakistan will keep burying its own future- child after child, girl after girl, family after family.
An Appeal to the National Conscience
It is not just a matter of policy, but people come to change. All the teachers, parents, religious leaders, neighbors, friends, and influencers should contribute to this injustice.
We also need to be taught to say no when a young girl is taken out of a school in marriage offer. We should raise our voices in opposition when even families want to tie children below the age of 18 in marriage. It is important to teach ourselves and others that marriage is not a trophy, not an escape, and not some form of show to have on social media.
Silence has become a thing of the past. We have to stop being apathetic.
Now is the moment to decide to be brave.
Bravery to make a difference. Bravery to defend. Bravery to defy bad practices and restore more healthy standards.
We should have children who are self-knowing children, grown-ups with choice rather than kids on a chain.
Let us not only battle law, but to hearts and minds until child marriage is not a gloriously trendy act, but a criminal mark, no longer given a thumbs-up, but will have to be taken to task.
Since the price to pay in child marriage is too expensive to overlook and the cost is paid by the individuals who cannot speak out against it, our children.
So, enough is enough, it is time to shatter that silence, and end up destroying another childhood.