Sindh MPA seeks to bring law, making it mandatory for parents to wed off children at 18

[MenInG]

Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) MPA Syed Abdul Rasheed submitted a draft of "The Sindh Compulsory Marriage Act, 2021" to the Sindh Assembly Secretariat on Wednesday which seeks to make marriage compulsory for people aged 18 years.

The draft of the proposed bill, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, stated that the parents of an adult who is not being married off after turning 18 will have to "submit an undertaking with justified reason of delay before the Deputy Commissioner of the District".

Parents who fail to submit the undertaking would have to pay a fine of Rs500 each, it added.

"This will bring well-being in the society," the objects and reasons section of the draft states.

Rasheed expressed the hope that all Sindh Assembly members — from both the treasury and opposition benches — would help in approving the bill for the "progress, happiness and facilitation of positive pathways" for the youth of the province.

In a video statement released after the submission of the proposed bill, he said that "societal ills, child rapes, immoral activities and crime" were rising in the country.

"To control all of this ... according to the shariat of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and Islamic teachings, Muslim males and females have been given the right to marry after attaining puberty or after 18 years of age and fulfilling this is the responsibility of their guardians, especially their parents."

He said that obstacles in the way of marriages such as unemployment and high costs were a "result of distancing from Islamic teachings". If we follow Islamic teachings, a lot of ease and blessings will descend upon the family, he added.

Listing the steps the government could take to make the process of marriage easier, he said there should be a ban on dowry and standard operating procedures (SOPs) regarding marriage ceremonies should be added to the bill which he said would "end competition and lead to people adopting simplicity".

Addressing the "obstacle of unemployment", he said the problem was that "society's tendency towards competition had spoiled a lot of legal and correct ways".

"I believe that after 18 years of age, if there is a reason [for not marrying], parents should submit an affidavit along with a commitment of the time the person would be married off," he added.

DAWN

 

[guna]

Sex is one of the most natural thing in this world and yet humans have managed to make it look like a dirty thing and immoral thing.
Marrying off kids as soon as they reach puberty will ruin their lives. Especially the females. They will simply be baby popping robots with no ambitions.

 

[Firebat]

Horrible idea. Will ruin the lives of all these kids, and will lead to a lot more failed/unhappy marriages I imagine.

 

[Zaz]

Not going to happen Thats just not a good idea at all or enforceable

 

[saeedhk]

Nothing happens in Pakistan except for marriages and babies. Seriously, we are way too obsessed with procreating. If it were up to me, I would raise the minimum marriage age so as to allow people especially girls to seek more education and to control the country’s ballooning population.

What I have noticed is that people in Pakistan have no goals in life. Most just want to get married and have babies despite being dirt poor and unemployed.

 

[Shah]

One of the main reasons for Pakistan's unsustainably high population growth is that females get married too young. Therefore they have more time to bear children. It is quite possible that by age 30, they already have 5 or 6 children. If they wait till the late 20's to get married, then they will have fewer children. Pakistan cannot afford to see its population grow at this high rate so it is important to encourage families to have 2 children.
What kind of uneducated leaders are these who will destroy the country due to their stupid line of thinking.

 

[Gharib Aadmi]

One of the main reasons for Pakistan's unsustainably high population growth is that females get married too young. Therefore they have more time to bear children. It is quite possible that by age 30, they already have 5 or 6 children.

Pakistan's population growth has been slowing for decades. Second not all Pakistanis have to live in Pakistan. So the population is not really a big problem.

If they wait till the late 20's to get married, then they will have fewer children. Pakistan cannot afford to see its population grow at this high rate so it is important to encourage families to have 2 children.
What kind of uneducated leaders are these who will destroy the country due to their stupid line of thinking.

Educated women usually have less children, so it does not really matter when women get married. A younger educated women would be more comfortable using contraceptives than perhaps a uneducated older women.

 

[saeedhk]

Pakistan's population growth has been slowing for decades. Second not all Pakistanis have to live in Pakistan. So the population is not really a big problem.



Educated women usually have less children, so it does not really matter when women get married. A younger educated women would be more comfortable using contraceptives than perhaps a uneducated older women.

Population is the biggest problem because it is the root of all social and economic problems. Pakistan has the fastest growing population in Asia after Afghanistan and one of the highest average family size or fertility rate amongst Muslim countries. Every women in Pakistan, on average, had almost 4 children compared to two in Bangladesh and Iran. We are adding 4 million to our population every year. Yeh abaadi nahin, barbaadi hai!

Most of people whom I know have at least 4 babies and they are mostly unemployed or they rely on remittance from the UK. It boggles my mind when they complain of poverty and financial hardships.

 

[saeedhk]

One of the main reasons for Pakistan's unsustainably high population growth is that females get married too young. Therefore they have more time to bear children. It is quite possible that by age 30, they already have 5 or 6 children. If they wait till the late 20's to get married, then they will have fewer children. Pakistan cannot afford to see its population grow at this high rate so it is important to encourage families to have 2 children.
What kind of uneducated leaders are these who will destroy the country due to their stupid line of thinking.

The last time Imran Khan talked about family planning, the whole country was up in arms. They said birth control was a conspiracy to reduce Muslim population. Seriously, when you start hearing what an average Pakistan man says and thinks, you realise that the country is beyond recovery. Take Maulana Tariq Masood, he always tells worshippers in his sermons to marry four times and have at least 16 kids ( he has 20-odd) because on the day of judgement, they will be rewarded for producing plentiful of Muslims and thus expanding the Ummah.

 

[Giannis]

I understand the rationale is to address the needs of young people and prevent zina however it shouldn't be forced on anyone, people want to live their life, learn more about themselves and explore the world before they're shackled into a monogamous relationship possibly for the rest of their lives.

 

[MenInG]

The Sindh government on Thursday distanced itself from the bill introduced in the provincial assembly making it mandatory for everyone to get married by the age of 18.

Provincial government spokesperson Murtaza Wahab said that the bill was introduced by Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) lawmaker Abdur Rasheed for "making marriage compulsory for all adults and proposing punishment against parents whose children above 18 remain unmarried".

Read more: Sindh MPA submits bill seeking to make marriage compulsory for people over 18 years

"This bill has nothing to do with Sindh government and will be rejected by PPP members," said Wahab.

The bill will likely be rejected by the provincial assembly as the PPP has a majority in the legislature.

A private bill was submitted in the Sindh Assembly a day earlier seeking to make it compulsory on parents to marry off their children after they turn 18 or face Rs500 fine for violating the proposed law.

The bill is called the Sindh Compulsory Marriage Act, 2021.

A draft of the bill was submitted by MMA's Syed Abdul Rasheed in the secretariat of the assembly.

The proposed bill makes it compulsory for every person turning 18 to marry.

The proposed law would make it binding upon parents to submit an affidavit in the office of the deputy commissioner, explaining why they are unable to marry off their children at the age of 18 years.

In case of failure to submit any such affidavit, the parents could face Rs500 fine for each of their unmarried children.

After submitting his proposed bill, the MMA lawmaker, in a video message, said that his bill was in accordance with the teachings of Islam, which called for marriage after attaining adulthood.

Austerity in marriage functions
The government should introduce laws and make efforts to ensure austerity in marriage functions, he added, hoping that his proposed law would be helpful in supporting the youth and curbing immoral activities in society.

He said the government should play its part to make marriages an easy task with no undue burden on parents in accordance with the teachings of Islam.

GEO

 

[Gharib Aadmi]

Population is the biggest problem because it is the root of all social and economic problems. Pakistan has the fastest growing population in Asia after Afghanistan and one of the highest average family size or fertility rate amongst Muslim countries. Every women in Pakistan, on average, had almost 4 children compared to two in Bangladesh and Iran. We are adding 4 million to our population every year. Yeh abaadi nahin, barbaadi hai!

Most of people whom I know have at least 4 babies and they are mostly unemployed or they rely on remittance from the UK. It boggles my mind when they complain of poverty and financial hardships.

The problem is not how many, but who is having them. Its not a problem if a well off family has 4 kids. However for a poor family even 2 kids might be too many.

Our economic problems are a result of viewing wealth creation as bad. We need more capitalism and less socialism. Wealth is not a zero sum game. We can have a large population and still be prosperous.

As well as ensuring the poor, especially poor women, are getting educated. The more educated the women the less children they have.

 

[Giannis]

The problem is not how many, but who is having them. Its not a problem if a well off family has 4 kids. However for a poor family even 2 kids might be too many.

Our economic problems are a result of viewing wealth creation as bad. We need more capitalism and less socialism. Wealth is not a zero sum game. We can have a large population and still be prosperous.

As well as ensuring the poor, especially poor women, are getting educated. The more educated the women the less children they have.

You don't need more capitalism, you need a blend of both capitalism and socialism. Pakistan's immense poverty can only be resolved by government-directed economic development and social programs - without socialistic programs you can't reform Pakistan's archaic cultural practices, need to change the country by changing the minds

 

[saeedhk]

The problem is not how many, but who is having them. Its not a problem if a well off family has 4 kids. However for a poor family even 2 kids might be too many.

Our economic problems are a result of viewing wealth creation as bad. We need more capitalism and less socialism. Wealth is not a zero sum game. We can have a large population and still be prosperous.

As well as ensuring the poor, especially poor women, are getting educated. The more educated the women the less children they have.

Majority of Pakistanis are not well-off and they have many children so population is a massive problem. No denying that. Overpopulation is the result of all social and economic problems: be it poverty, 25 million out-of-school children, abysmal health infrastructure, stunted growth in children, disease, unemployment etc. Our big population is a curse and the biggest obstacle to prosperity.

 

[ishtiaq_ctg]

Majority of Pakistanis are not well-off and they have many children so population is a massive problem. No denying that. Overpopulation is the result of all social and economic problems: be it poverty, 25 million out-of-school children, abysmal health infrastructure, stunted growth in children, disease, unemployment etc. Our big population is a curse and the biggest obstacle to prosperity.

This is where Bangladesh has left behind Pakistan- in social reforms. You would find significantly less number of oversized families in rural areas now compared to last ten years considering the last decade also saw a significant decline in the population growth. The Government along with NGO has done an amazing job to create awareness about the cons of oversized population to an extent that it is becoming a sort of taboo to have more than 2 kids in the urban & rural areas where as even 8-10 years ago people were ok with having 3kids. Days of polygamous families & 8-10 children are all but over in Bangladesh considering it was very common for to marry more than once till the 70s & 80s.

 

[gazza619]

What a strange world is that part of the world.