By IPS Correspondents
ISLAMABAD, Oct 29 2003 (IPS)

The Pakistani government views the story of 13-year-old Baby Pathani, who was married off to settle a family loan, as proof of how it protects children’s rights, but activists say it needs to show concern in much more than one high-profile case to make a real difference.

A victim of tribal traditions, Pathani was married off to a 65-year-old man by her grandfather to settle a loan of 100,000 rupees (1,725 U.S. dollars), in line with a decision of the tribal ‘jirga’ in their village near the town of Dadu in the southern Sindh province.

As rare a case it may be, the 13-year-old defied tradition as well as the decision of the ‘jirga’, the highest decision-making body in tribes and clans in this South Asian country, and ran back to her parents within days of her forced marriage.

Fearing for her life and sympathetic to her agony, Pathani’s father, Mohammad Amin, said: ”I and some of my relatives brought her to Islamabad to seek help from the government. We couldn’t have left our daughter to lead her entire life in agony.”

But before coming to the capital Islamabad, Amin had the marriage nullified from a local court because Pakistani law actually prohibits the marriage of minors.

Here in Islamabad, Pathani was taken in a by a government-run shelter for women in crisis, and this was how her story reached the press.

The publication of Pathani’s story along with her picture, first reported by the English-language daily ‘The News’ on Oct. 15, prompted people to donate the money required to secure her release from the debt bondage that led to her being married off by her grandfather.

Words of sympathy came from no less than the prime minister’s adviser on women’s affairs, Nilofer Bakhtiar, who said that the government would exert all efforts to enforce the laws on child marriage, debt bondage and others that Pakistan has devised to meet its obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

”Although more needs to be done, we are doing our best to improve the lot of particularly women and children in the country,” she told IPS.

But activists criticise the government’s approach. ”We know that child marriages are a widespread problem and that thousands of minor girls are forced into marriages every year,” said Tracey Wagner, who works with the Islamabad-based Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC).

The government’s response should not be unique to this case, critics say, but one that is aimed at addressing in its entirety an issue that is by no means a rare occurrence in a country where traditions can undercut women’s rights.

Although Pathani is free, said Wagner, her freedom came with a price and not as her right – and this illustrates how these traditions still prevailed in the end.

”The family debt and Pathani’s freedom should not have been interlinked in the first place. That the young girl could be freed only after the payment of the debt that her family had taken only shows the extent of the rot in society,” she said.

”The person who married the minor as well Pathani’s grandfather are free and have not been punished for violating the clear laws that bars child marriages as well as debt bondage,” said Wagner. ”Similarly, the members of the jirga that decided the young girl’s fate should be taken to task.”

Under the Child Marriages Restraint Act 1929, anybody who contracts a marriage with a minor faces imprisonment of up to one month or a fine or both. The law carries similar punishment for anybody who solemnises a child marriage, and for a parent or guardian involved.

Officials in the National Commission for Child Welfare and Development (NCCWD) agree that underage marriages are widespread in Pakistan, but say they are difficult to control or stop.

”Marrying a minor is a crime under the law, but the implementation of this law becomes almost impossible in communities run by their own set of centuries-old traditions,” said an official who asked not to be named. ”Not many victims come forward with a complaint.”

Even in cases where minors stand up against forced marriages, the law does not always take its course. Just as in Pathani’s case, a court last year only annulled the marriages of two minor sisters of the ages of 13 and 14 years, but did not punish those who solemnised their marriages and their parents.

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, the practice of selling women and girls for marriages is prevalent in the country.

”In Swat (in the North West Frontier province), a woman could be bought for no more than 10,000 rupees (172 dollars). In Sindh and Balochistan, the selling of daughters as young as 10 years to suitors willing to pay their families 30,000 to 40,000 rupees was reported,” said the commission’s State of Human Rights Report 2002.

Experts say these problems will continue until the government fully implements the Convention of the Rights of the Child. ”The fact is we are still far away from achieving the objectives of child rights protection,” said Zarghon Shah, who has worked with the U.N. Children’s Fund as a consultant.

”A few laws here and there won’t change anything,” he said. ”Punishment to violators of child rights will be a strong deterrent, but what is more important is societal change.”

Pathani’s case came to public knowledge two weeks after the CRC Committee in Geneva, Switzerland grilled the Pakistani delegation over child rights violations, particularly forced child marriages, at its 34th session that ended on Oct. 3.

The CRC Committee recommended that Pakistan align the age of marriage of boys and girls by increasing the minimum age of marriage for girls to 18 years and taking all ”necessary measures to prevent early and/or forced marriages”.

Under the law, the minimum age for the marriage of women is 16 years, and 18 years for men. But the country’s Juvenile Justice Ordinance and the CRC set the age of a juvenile at 18 years or younger.

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