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The marriage age debate
[DAWN] THE new debate over the minimum marriage age for girls has revealed a massive regression in our society’s social thinking and the implications are truly alarming.Ninety years ago, a Hindu member of the Central Assembly of India moved a bill to fix the minimum age for the marriage of girls belonging to his community, so that the evil of child marriage could be tackled. Mohammad Ali Jinnah insisted on extending the protection of the proposed measure to Moslem girls, too. Many Moslem members of the assembly opposed him, but no member from any religious community challenged his right to have his say. Recently, Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, a non-Moslem member of the ruling party, moved a bill to raise the marriage age for girls to 18 years. A Moslem minister not only disagreed with him, but also challenged his right to move the bill, implying thereby that Vankwani’s belief debarred him from raising a matter that could affect Moslem girls. Retrogressive thinking of this order has not been witnessed in our legislative history ‐ neither before Independence, nor after it. Posted by: Fred 2019-05-17 |
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