Saving children

Family laws and related pieces of legislature are too rarely taken seriously by the male-dominated legislatures in our country, even though these affect millions of people, particularly women and children. The Punjab Assembly then has done well to pass the Punjab Marriage Restraint (amendment) Act 2015 on Friday. Significantly, the law increases the punishment for registering a child marriage and imposes imprisonment for six months and a fine of Rs50,000 on any person involved in arranging the marriage of a child. The family laws in the country lay down this age as 16 for women and 18 for men. The same punishment has been put in place for the nikah registrar who performs the nikah, increasing this penalty from the previously set terms of one month or a Rs1,000 fine. The message this new law sends out is good; how effective it will be in stopping the many child marriages that still take place depends on implementation and awareness raising at various levels.
The law goes beyond child marriage and also takes up other issues linked to the conduct of a nikah. It sets in place the requirement that all clauses of the nikah form be filled out with the registrar made responsible for this. This step greatly benefits women, at least in theory, given that in the past many of the paragraphs which protected their rights were crossed out routinely when filling out the document. There are also tougher penalties for conducting a second marriage without the consent of the first wife. While these steps may seem minor, they send out an important message and highlight the problems we face – especially women – when it comes to family laws. Many aspects of these law need amendments. It is also true that the handling of marital matters by courts and other officials is a special problem. But at least in Punjab a step has been taken towards addressing these issues. Coming a few days before this International Women’s Day (which falls today) this should be taken as a positive sign as we attempt to protect the most vulnerable members of our society – women and especially girls too young to speak out for themselves. The law finally gives them a voice in at least some aspects of marriage. This is a first step in hopefully more legal empowerment for women.