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The Chief Minister of Sindh has summoned a report from the Commissioner of Hyderabad regarding the marriage of 45 underage girls in a village in Dadu district.
According to AFP, 45 girls have been married since the last monsoon season, with 15 of these marriages occurring in May and June this year.
The CM took action following reports that these young girls were married off in exchange for money in Khan Muhammad Malgoth. Rights activists are raising alarms that, while the rate of underage marriages in Pakistan had been gradually declining, economic insecurity caused by climate change is reversing this trend, particularly after the devastating floods of 2022.
Government data released in December indicates that child marriages are still prevalent in certain regions of Pakistan, which ranks sixth globally for the highest rate of girls marrying before the age of 18. The legal marriage age varies from 16 to 18 across different regions, but enforcement of this law is rare.
UNICEF has acknowledged “significant strides” in reducing child marriage but warns that extreme weather events increase the risk for girls. In a report following the 2022 floods, UNICEF predicted an 18% rise in child marriages, effectively wiping out five years of progress.
Millions of farmers rely on the summer monsoon from July to September for their livelihoods and food security, but scientists argue that climate change is intensifying and prolonging the monsoon, leading to more floods, landslides, and long-term crop damage. Many villages in Sindh’s agricultural belt remain submerged following the 2022 floods, which devastated lives, ruined crops, and submerged a third of the country.
“This has led to a new trend of ‘monsoon brides’,” said Mashooque Birhmani, founder of the NGO Sujag Sansar, which collaborates with religious scholars to combat child marriage. “Families will resort to any means for survival. The most obvious option is to marry off their daughters in exchange for money.” Birhmani noted that child marriage has surged in villages in Dadu district, one of the areas hardest hit by the floods, which for months resembled a lake.
