A step back in the fight against child marriages in Pakistan. The influential Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) has recently nullified a planned law banning marriage under the age of 18.
The reason: so called religious grounds (in a country where between 30 to 60% of girls are married off before 18).
This is very disappointing and goes against all international child and human rights. ICDI and its Pakistani partner Bedari are successfully fighting child marriages at community level, but these kinds of political developments indicate how difficult the fight really is. Read more in the article ‘Anti-Islamic’: Pakistan rejects bill banning child marriage‘.
