Anti-Pedophilia Bill Rejected In Pakistan As ‘Anti-Islamic’
A bid to ban child marriage in Pakistan utterly failed, after the Council of Islamic Ideology declared the legislation “anti-Islamic” and “blasphemous.”
The bill didn’t even move past the first stage in the legislative process, The Express Tribune reports. It was almost immediately pulled Thursday by Pakistan Muslim League party’s Marvi Menon following condemnation from CII, whose job it is to advise the legislature on whether bills are compliant with Sharia law. In this case, the bill clearly violated Islamic law as tradition holds marriage as acceptable when a girl hits puberty.
don’t believe any little girls “hit puberty” at age nine.
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According to the organization Girls Not Brides, over 21 percent of the girls in Pakistan enter into marriage before the age of 18.
CII Chairman Mohammad Khan Sheerani reiterated in 2014 that girls can be married at age nine, so long as puberty is apparent, adding that attempts to revisit the issue are pointless and unnecessary.
“Parliament cannot create legislation that is against the teachings of the Holy Quran or Sunnah,” Sheerani said in 2014, according to The Express Tribune.