DADU, PAKISTAN – As the monsoon rains neared Pakistan, 14-year-old Shamila and her 13-year-old sister Amina were married off in exchange for money, a decision their parents made to help the family survive the threat of flooding.
“I’m happy to hear I’m getting married… I think my life will be easier,” Shamila told AFP after her marriage to a man twice her age in hopes of a more prosperous life.
“But I have nothing. And with the rain, I’m afraid it’s going to get worse, if that’s even possible.”
Pakistan’s high rate of marriage for underage girls has declined in recent years, but after unprecedented floods hit in 2022, human rights workers are warning that such marriages are now on the rise due to economic instability driven by climate change.
The summer monsoon between July and September is vital to millions of farmers’ lives and food security, but scientists say climate change is making it worse and longer, increasing the risk of landslides, floods and long-term crop damage.
Many villages in Sindh’s agricultural region have yet to recover from the 2022 floods, which submerged a third of the country, left millions homeless and damaged crops.
“This has led to a new trend of ‘monsoon brides’,” said Mashooque Birhmani, founder of NGO Sujag Sansar, which works with religious scholars to combat child marriage.
“The family will do anything to survive. The first and most obvious way is to marry off their daughters in exchange for money.”
Birhmani said that since the 2022 floods, child marriages have increased in villages in Dadu district, one of the worst affected areas which for months looked like a lake.
In the village of Khan Mohammad Mallah, where Shamila and Amina were married in a joint ceremony in June, 45 underage girls have been married since the last monsoon.
“Before the rains of 2022, there is no need to marry a girl this young in our area,” said the village head, Mai Hajani, 65.
“They will work in the fields, making ropes for wooden beds, men will be busy with fishing and farming. There is always work to be done”.
Parents tell AFP that they speed up their daughters’ marriages to save their families from poverty, usually in exchange for money.
Shamila’s mother-in-law, Bibi Sachal, said they gave US$720 to the young bride’s parents – a large sum in a region where most families live on around a dollar a day.
LIPSTICK AND MAKEUP
Najma Ali was initially excited to become a wife when she got married at the age of 14 in 2022 and started living with her in-laws, as is the tradition in Pakistan.
“My husband gave my parents 250,000 rupees for our wedding. But it is a loan from a third party that he cannot afford to pay now,” he said.
“I thought I would get lipstick, makeup, clothes and dishes,” she said AFP while holding her six-month-old daughter.
“Now I go back to the village with my husband and one child because we have nothing to eat.”
Their village, located by a canal in the Utama Nara Valley, is barren and there are no more fish in the polluted water – a stench pervades the area.
“Before, we had fertile rice fields where the girls usually worked,” said Hakim Zaadi, 58, village head and Najma’s mother.
“They planted a lot of vegetables, which are all dead now because the water in the soil is poisoned. This happens especially after 2022,” he added.
“Girls were not a burden to us before that. Now they have five children, and they are back living with their parents because their husbands are unemployed.”
I WANT TO LEARN
Child marriage is common in parts of Pakistan, which has the sixth-highest number of girls married before the age of 18 in the world, according to government data published in December 2023.
The legal age for marriage varies from 16 to 18 in different regions, but the law is rarely enforced.
UNICEF has reported ‘significant strides’ in reducing child marriage, but evidence shows that extreme weather events are putting girls at risk.
“We expect an 18 percent increase in the prevalence of child marriage, equivalent to eliminating five years of progress,” according to the report after the 2022 flood.
Dildar Ali Sheikh, 31, had planned to marry his eldest daughter, Mehtab, while living in a relief camp after being displaced by the floods.
“When I was there, I thought ‘we should marry our daughter so that at least she can eat and have basic facilities’,” the daily wage worker told AFP.
Mehtab is only 10 years old.
“The night I decided to marry him, I couldn’t sleep,” said his mother, Sumbal Ali Sheikh, who married at the age of 18.
Intervention from the NGO Sujag Sansar caused the wedding to be postponed, and Mehtab was enrolled in a tailoring workshop, allowing her to earn some income while continuing her education.
But when the monsoon rains arrive, he is struck with fear that his promised marriage will arrive as well.
“I have told my father that I want to study,” he said. “I see married girls around me who have very challenging lives and I don’t want to be like this for myself.” – AFP
