High Court instructs government to introduce law for girls’ marriages

ISLAMABAD (APP): The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday instructed the government to introduce legislation in the house to fix the minimum age limits for girls’ marriages.
Justice Aamer Farooq of IHC issued a written order containing 11 pages. According to the amicus curiae Barrister Zafarulla, there was no clear law about the age limit for girls’ marriage, the court said.
The court said even as per the Islamic laws, a girl must be in adult age and mentally mature at the time of taking an important decision of her marriage. Many Islamic countries had also introduced laws to stop the child marriages.
Many religious sects also agreed on certain minimum age of girls for ‘nikah’, it added. Islam had not mentioned any particular age for the marriage but it also had not stopped to fix it.
The court granted bail to an accused Abdul Razzaq who was alleged for kidnapping a girl.
The court said that the girl concerned had stated that she was not kidnapped rather she came out of the house on her will.
The girl’s age was more than 16 years due to which the Child Marriage Reinstate Act could not be applied in the matter, the order concluded.