Pakistan has different standards for minor Muslim and non-Muslim girls kidnapped for marriage
Op IndiaThe authorities in Peshawar which is in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, arrested a 72-year-old man for attempting to marry a 12-year-old girl. United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund reported that 18.9 million Pakistani girls tie the knot before they reach 18 years of age and 4.6 million get married before they turn 16. an 11-year-old girl in Rajanpur, Punjab, was pressured to wed a 40-year-old man while another young girl was compelled to marry a 50-year-old landlord in Thatta, Sindh. On 13th June, a startling story from Pakistan’s Karachi region surfaced about the kidnapping of a 16-year-old Hindu girl and her forced marriage to a young Muslim man. He pressured her to sign the document which read, “I have not been abducted by anyone to perform this marriage and I am giving this affidavit in my full senses without any force, pressure, or undue influence that I am going to solemnize my marriage with Sameer Ali with my personal decision without any force by anyone.” Last year, Sohana Sharma Kumari, a 14-year-old girl, was taken away from her house in the Sindh province’s Benazirabad area. It noted, “A woman’s right to choose a spouse and freely enter into marriage is central to her life, dignity, and equality as a human being and must be protected and upheld by law.” The UN urged Pakistan to uphold its international human rights obligations, ensure that those guilty of such violations are brought to justice and strengthen the implementation of current laws that protect against forced marriage as well as the abduction and trafficking of girls from the minority community.