A 12-year-old girl was married to a 10-year old boy in Sargodha city of Punjab, depicting escalation in the trend of early-age marriages in the most populous province of the country.
The marriage was performed between the juveniles by a religious cleric, reportedly just to ‘earn a few rupees’. The event was held in consent with the guardians of the children.
According to religious experts, Nikah (Islamic marriage) of children can be performed but the girl’s ‘rukhsati’ (seeing her off to the boy’s house) cannot be done until they grow older to the legal age of marriage.
According to a report of United Nations Population “Marrying too Young: End Child Marriage”, the number of children marrying each other will grow by 14 percent from 14.2 million in 2010 to 15.1 million in 2030 if the current trend continues.
Blog post Written by Farheen Raza and You can visit the original article at http://www.thenewstribe.com/