Sharafat A. Chaudhry,  Rabia Mustafa

Pakistan has ratified the Convention on Elimination of All of Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) to enforce women’s rights in the country. Various provisions of the Constitution of Pakistan, 1973 inter alia Articles 25(3), 26, 35 and 37 provide that special laws may be enacted for the protection, promotion, empowerment and enforcement of women’s rights. Moreover, in contact of prohibiting child marriage, the following is international legal provisions or declaration are worth noticing:

  • Article 16(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that: “Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses”.
  • The 1964 Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriages is the first binding UN treaty that prohibits forced and early marriages and requires states parties to eliminate the marriage of girls under the age of puberty, to stipulate a minimum age of marriage and to establish measures for the registration of all marriages.
  • Article 1(1) of the Convention states that, “No marriage shall be legally entered into without the full and free consent of both parties, such consent to be expressed by them in person after due publicity and in the presence of the authority competent to solemnize the marriage and of witnesses, as prescribed by law.”
  • 16(1) of CEDAW provides that the States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in all matters relating to marriage and family relations and in particular shall ensure on a basis of equality of men and women “be the same right freely to choose a spouse and to enter into marriage only with their free and full consent”.
  • In a landmark international consensus, the Programme of action adopted by the International conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994, countries agreed on measures to eliminate child marriage as well as to “strictly enforce laws to ensure that marriage is entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses. In addition Government should strictly enforce laws concerning the minimum legal age of consent and minimum at marriage and should raise the minimum age at marriage where necessary”.

Continued….

Sharafat A. Chaudhry is a human rights lawyer and the founding Chairperson of the School for Law and Development.

Rabia Mustafa is a Senior Research Fellow at the School for Law and Development.

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