Pakistan: The Battle for Childhood

By Nasir Aijaz
The AsiaN Representative

ISLAMABAD: Child marriage remains one of Pakistan’s most entrenched human rights crises. Despite decades of activism and a growing legislative firewall, the practice continues to rob millions of girls of their health, education, and childhood.

While the state has made significant strides in recent years to criminalize the practice, these efforts face opposition by religious political parties. One of such opponents is the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) led by Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who vehemently oppose these laws as contrary to Islamic Sharia. 

According to recent data, approximately 18% of girls in Pakistan are married before the age of 18, with nearly 4% married before the age of 15. Pakistan has the sixth-highest number of absolute child brides in the world. The consequences are devastating: early pregnancies leading to high maternal and infant mortality rates, a cessation of education, and a lifetime of economic dependency and vulnerability to domestic violence. 

For decades, the country relied on the colonial-era Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929, which set the marriageable age at 16 for girls and 18 for boys. The penalties were weak (a trivial fine and a month of imprisonment), and the marriage itself remained valid even if the law was broken. 

Sindh became the first province to challenge the status quo by passing the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act, 2013. This landmark law raised the minimum marriage age to 18 for both boys and girls, making child marriage a cognizable and non-bailable offense.

The Punjab government passed the Punjab Marriage Restraint (Amendment) Act 2015. While it significantly increased penalties (fines up to PKR50,000 and six months imprisonment), it failed to raise the minimum age for girls, leaving it at 16. 

In a major victory for rights activists, the Islamabad Capital Territory Child Marriage Restraint Act 2025 was recently enacted, raising the marriage age to 18 for both sexes in the capital. Following suit, Balochistan also passed legislation in late 2025 raising the age to 18, marking a historic shift in a socially conservative province. 

While the state moves toward protection, religious political parties have consistently acted as the primary roadblock. The opposition is led principally by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) and its chief, Maulana Fazlur Rehman. Their resistance is not merely political but ideological, rooted in a specific interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence. 

Maulana Fazlur Rehman and his party maintain that setting a minimum age for marriage is “un-Islamic” and a violation of Sharia. They argue that in Islam, the eligibility for marriage is determined by puberty, not a numerical age enacted by the parliament. Therefore, once a girl reaches puberty, she is eligible for marriage, regardless of whether she is 18 or younger. 

Fazlur Rehman has frequently characterized child marriage prevention laws as a “Western agenda” aimed at destroying the Muslim family system and promoting “vulgarity”.

The JUI-F often cites rulings by the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), a constitutional body that advises the legislature on Sharia. The CII has declared that restricting marriage age is un-Islamic, though they have recently softened their stance to say the government can set an age for administrative purposes—a nuance the hardliners often ignore. 

The JUI-F has moved beyond rhetoric to actively sabotage legislation. Immediately following the passage of the Islamabad Capital Territory Child Marriage Restraint Act in May 2025, Maulana Fazlur Rehman publicly rejected the law. He termed it a war against Islamic values and announced nationwide protest rallies to pressure the government into retraction. 

During legislative sessions in both the National Assembly and provincial assemblies, JUI-F lawmakers have been observed tearing up copies of child marriage bills, shouting slogans, and causing physical commotion to prevent voting. 

For years, senators affiliated with JUI-F and Jamaat-e-Islami effectively killed private member bills seeking to raise the marriage age by referring them endlessly to standing committees or the CII, where they would languish and die.

The religious opposition’s stance suffered a significant legal blow in 2023-2024 when the Federal Shariat Court (FSC), the highest Islamic court in the country, ruled that setting a minimum age for marriage is not un-Islamic. The court reasoned that an Islamic state has the right to legislate for the well-being of its citizens. 

Despite this ruling, Maulana Fazlur Rehman and his supporters continue to oppose the laws politically, ignoring the FSC’s judgment in favor of their traditionalist interpretations.

The fight against child marriage in Pakistan is a conflict between two visions of the future. On one side stands the state and civil society, armed with data and a desire to protect children from physical and economic harm. On the other stands a powerful religious lobby, who view these protections as an encroachment on religious liberty.

While the passage of the 2025 laws in Islamabad proves that the state is finally finding the political will to defy this pressure, and the religious groups will continue to agitate, the fundamental issue that will haunt the country is the strict enforcement of these laws to protect the childhood of girls.