Lahore, August 29: On Thursday, the PODA team held a series of strategic meetings with women Members of the Provincial Assembly (MPAs of PML-N) in Punjab, advocating for a crucial legal amendment to the Child Marriage Restraint Act 2015. The team emphasized the need to raise the minimum age of marriage for girls to 18 years, ensuring a safer and more empowering future for young girls in the province. Through these meetings, PODA aimed to amplify the voices of marginalized communities and garner support for this vital legislative change.
The PODA team presented the case of child marriages, highlighting its social, economic, health, and mental implications on a girl child, in order to amplify voices in favor of a legal amendment to raise the minimum age of marriage for girls to 18 years in the province. These efforts are part of a 3-year project, “Reducing Early Marriages to Enhance Gender Equality” (December 2022 to November 2025), supported by the Norwegian Embassy in Islamabad. PODA is implementing it across the entire province of Punjab, engaging with a wide range of stakeholders, including parents, adolescent girls, women, community leaders, government officials from health, education, population, social welfare, police, religious leaders, nikah khawans/registrars, secretaries of union councils, local governments, teachers, MPAs, academicians, lady health workers, staff of basic health units, doctors, lawyers, and social activists. This is being achieved through a comprehensive set of activities, including: A series of educational theater performances, multiple series of radio programs, seminars, workshops, sessions, trainings, social media campaigns, letter-writing campaigns initiated from communities addressed to members of the provincial assembly.
In a significant meeting with MPA Sarah Ahmad, Chairperson of the Child Protection & Welfare Bureau Punjab, the PODA team received a reassuring commitment to take all necessary measures to ensure a legal amendment protecting adolescent girls. The Chairperson emphasized that safeguarding the right to education is pivotal to fulfilling all child rights, and she pledged to champion this cause, paving the way for the protection of girls’ fundamental rights. She described working on children’s issues as “highly sensitive”, explaining that it’s a challenging task since it involves helping children who have faced trauma in precarious situations, such as those living on the streets. In response to a question, she noted that often, people abandon ‘girl children’ and leave them in vulnerable situations, only to be rescued later by the communities.
MPA Sarah Ahmad is leading efforts to table a bill increasing the minimum age of marriage for girls to 18 years. She submitted a resolution on April 3 this year in the Punjab Assembly, seeking to raise the minimum marriage age to 18 years, emphasizing that child marriages have far-reaching negative impacts.
In a meeting with the PODA team, MPA Advocate Kanwal Liaquat provided an update, stating that as a member of Committee 1 of the assembly, she is pleased to share that the committee has thoroughly reviewed the legal amendment to raise the minimum age of marriage for girls to 18 years. The committee has successfully completed a comprehensive consultation process with all stakeholders, and now, under the promising leadership of the Chief Minister of Punjab, the government is prepared to table the bill in the assembly soon, she added. She emphasized that, alongside the proposed amendment, her party will take steps to ensure its effective implementation as well. She urged the PODA team to work actively to raise community awareness about child marriages, in order to help combat and stop this social menace.
In a meeting with MPA Advocate Rushda Lodhi, Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Member of the Punjab Bar Council, she commended PODA’s efforts in reducing early marriages in the province through a series of educational and awareness-raising activities engaging all stakeholders. She suggested holding joint awareness-raising sessions for a larger number of MPAs on issues crucial to the lives and survival of girl children, to amplify their voices. She also assured that, as Parliamentary Secretary of Health, she will prioritize the “health of girl children” and make every effort to ensure that healthcare is recognized and protected as their fundamental right, essential for their well-being.
The PODA team also met with MPA – (PML-N), Sumbal Maalik Hussain, at her office located in Delhi Gate, Lahore. She appreciated PODA’s effort in visiting her and taking the time to understand the real situation on the ground, rather than just holding activities in hotels. She suggested that we should focus on identifying and addressing the underlying reasons why parents opt to marry off their young, underage daughters, in order to effectively tackle these issues and safeguard communities, thereby enhancing the impact of the proposed legislation.
