Khan Mohammad Mallah, Sindh, Pakistan – Asifa* was seated on the cool earthy ground of her family’s humble abode when her parents entered the room. The sun was beginning to set over the small village of 250 families nestled in the heart of Pakistan’s southeastern Sindh province, casting a warm glow over the surrounding arid landscape. Asifa distinctly remembers the scent of dried grass carried by the gentle wind.
Her mother’s countenance was inscrutable, but Asifa could sense that something was amiss today. Her parents exchanged a brief glance before turning to her. “Your marriage has been arranged,” her father informed her.
At just 13 years old, Asifa was taken aback by the news.
Initially, she did not fully comprehend the situation. Her mind drifted to thoughts of new garments, sparkling jewelry, and the festivities she had heard older girls in the village talk about. A wedding meant presents, make-up, and new attire.
“I thought it would be a grand celebration,” Asifa reminisces, her voice weighted as she sits outside her husband’s residence on a colorful charpai, a woven daybed, gazing out at the cracked earth of her native village. Wrapped in a faded pink dupatta, her youthful face framed by dark locks, she is now 15 years old and a mother to a baby just a few months old, whom she cradles affectionately in her arms.
Her mud and thatch dwelling stands behind her, its roof weathered by years of harsh winds, rains, and scorching sun.
“I never truly grasped the implications of marriage,” she admits. “I never realized it would entail being with an older man, someone I neither knew nor chose.”
Moreover, she reveals that her husband is in debt after taking out a loan of 300,000 Pakistani rupees ($1,070) to pay to her family when they consented to the marriage. “He is unable to repay it.”
The decision of Asifa’s parents to marry off their 13-year-old daughter was not driven by tradition but by sheer desperation.
Devastated by the catastrophic floods that ravaged Pakistan in 2022, Asifa’s parents were deeply affected. For generations, her family had cultivated rice and vegetables like okra, chilies, tomatoes, and onions in the once-fertile Main Nara Valley. However, the rising waters rendered their fields unrecognizable, inundated, and barren.
The money they had anticipated earning from their harvests and the modest savings they had set aside for their daughter’s future all vanished. For months, her parents tried to rebuild what they had lost, salvaging what little they could from the remnants of their land, borrowing from relatives in a bid to make ends meet. But the crushing loss of their crops, coupled with soaring prices of essentials and a lack of access to clean water, made it impossible to sustain themselves.
“With three younger children at home, the couple concluded that they could no longer afford to support Asifa, let alone provide her with the education they had once aspired for her,” Asifa sadly acknowledges.
“They were left with no other option,” she remarks ruefully.
In the village of Khan Mohammad Mallah, where farming, fishing, and livestock rearing are the primary sources of income, Asifa’s experience is not uncommon. The 2022 floods have left deep scars on the community, plunging families – now living at the mercy of the whims of the weather – into dire poverty.
With homes obliterated, crops washed away, and livelihoods shattered, the practice of child marriage, where men pay an agreed sum to families in exchange for marrying girls as young as nine, is on the rise.
According to Sujag Sansar, an NGO working to combat child marriage in the region, there were 45 documented cases of children – mostly girls, but some boys as well – under the age of 18 being married in this one village alone last year.
This is not simply a matter of tradition, asserts Mashooque Birhmani, founder of Sujag Sansar. Pakistan’s Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929 established the legal marriage age for boys at 18 and for girls at 16. In April 2014, the Sindh Assembly ratified the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act, which raised the minimum marriage age to 18 for both girls and boys.
Birhmani believes the surge in child marriage is directly linked to the floods. Crucially, one-third of these underage marriages took place in May and June – just before the onset of the monsoon rains – indicating that they were conducted in anticipation of the anticipated damage from the torrential downpours.
“Prior to the 2022 rains, young girls in this area would not be married off so early,” Birhmani remarks. “Such instances were rare. Young girls were assisting their parents in crafting rope for wooden beds or working in the fields.”
For many families, marrying off young girls has become a survival tactic, but it also comes at the expense of the girls’ education, health, and future prospects.
In recent years, the repercussions of climate change have become increasingly apparent. Monsoon rains, once a lifeline for millions of Pakistan’s farmers and vital in the normal course of food production, have become more erratic and severe, wreaking havoc on agricultural lands and exacerbating food shortages. Additionally, escalating temperatures are hastening glacier melt in the country’s northern regions, contributing to river swelling and overwhelming flood defenses.
The climate crisis has given rise to what has come to be known as “monsoon brides.” While no formal studies on child marriage in such circumstances have been conducted, NGOs such as Sujag Sansar contend that anecdotal evidence indicates that the practice is becoming more prevalent across the entire country. In the Sindh region, it is believed that nearly a quarter of girls are married before reaching the age of 18.
“There has been a noticeable increase in forced marriages, particularly during the most catastrophic floods in the nation’s history – those of 2007, 2010, and 2022,” states Gulsher Panhwer, project manager at Sujag Sansar.
In response to the upsurge in the numbers of “monsoon brides” in recent years, Sujag Sansar has initiated several community-based initiatives to address the root causes of child marriage. “We engage religious leaders, teachers, parents, and young girls to create networks of support and resistance,” elucidates founder Birhmani. “Through artistic and cultural projects, we encourage dialogue and raise awareness.
“Education is the key to breaking the cycle of child marriage. When girls are empowered with skills, they are no longer viewed as burdens but as individuals capable of shaping their own futures.”
Sujag Sansar organizes community theater and musical performances that serve as a platform for discussion in five districts within Sindh.
The utilization of theater allows various members of a community to convene to share their stories through art. “By inviting both men and women to participate, we create a space for reflection and conversation,” Birhmani explains. The organization also provides professional training to women and girls to help them attain financial independence and mental health support.
The Sujag Sansar office in Dadu district, situated along the Indus River in southeastern Sindh, buzzes with fervor as a small assembly of women congregates outside. Forming a circle on the ground, the soft sand beneath their feet peppered with scattered roses, each woman clutches a candle, the flames dancing gently in the evening breeze, casting a warm glow on their countenances. Voices resound as the women share their experiences. Some chuckle, others speak softly, but all are united in their mission – to put an end to the abhorrent practice of child marriage.
Among them is Samina*, who wears a gentle smile as she cradles her infant. Today is a special occasion as she partakes in a ritual upheld by the organization since 2005, where women and girls who have been coerced into early marriages light candles to amplify their voices against this oppressive custom. This ceremony is their way of standing in solidarity, a defiant exhibition of strength and unity.
During the ceremony, Samina, now 28 and a mother of five, shares her story. In 2011, when she was 13, she was informed by her mother that she was to wed a distant cousin, who was himself only 15. She had scarcely known him.
“I was seated outside stitching a bedsheet when my mother approached and simply stated, ‘You are getting married’. We both fell silent. In our family, women do not express their emotions,” she recollects. Her two elder sisters had also been wed at the ages of 13 and 14.
With her father incapacitated due to psychiatric issues, the family’s sustenance relied on her mother, who toiled long hours as a domestic worker. However, the calamitous 2010 floods had decimated the residences where she was employed, and the family’s income evaporated.
The 200,000 rupees ($714) secured from her marriage was their final lifeline, a means to avert utter destitution and potentially shield Samina’s two younger sisters from a similar fate.
“Presently, families earn a maximum of 10,000 ($36) to 12,000 rupees ($43) per month,” notes Birhmani. That equates to about one dollar a day to feed approximately ten individuals. “Every morsel of food per child matters.”
On the day of her nuptials, Samina recalls being consumed by anxiety. “During the ceremony, I did not fully grasp that my childhood was slipping away,” she reflects.
As the ceremony drew to a close, the stark reality of her separation from her family hit her with brutal force.
While her mother and younger sister wept, the 13-year-old bride was escorted to her new home with her spouse in a different village.
“The tiny gloves I received as a wedding gift did nothing to assuage the overwhelming sorrow,” she recounts. Today, she consoles herself with the knowledge that her younger sisters have not been married off and are instead pursuing their education.
“During the initial year of my marriage, the most difficult aspect was no longer having my mother by my side,” she confides. “At bedtime, she used to stay with me until I fell asleep. She would narrate stories and tousle my hair. Overnight, I found myself sharing a bed with a man I did not know. I was on my own, without my sisters and parents in an unfamiliar diminutive house. It suddenly felt so desolate.”
Two years post-marriage, Samina became pregnant with her first child. “I did not comprehend what I was supposed to do. I was frightened, and the pain was excruciating, but I grew accustomed to it.”
While her family had hoped that she would lead a better life if she married, Samina’s husband, a laborer, struggles to secure work in the construction industry. “Many homes have been damaged due to the floods, but people lack the funds to repair them,” she remarks.
The dearth of employment has taken a toll on her husband’s mental well-being, and Samina was compelled to sew bedsheets to provide for and educate her five children.
Years after being wed against her will, Samina now emanates a sense of hope. Though she still sews bedsheets, as she did the day she learned of her impending marriage, her life has undergone profound change. She is receiving training in handicrafts and aspires to establish her own business. Clad in a red dupatta adorned with tiny white dots, her countenance reflects determination.
Enveloped by other young women who, like her, were married prematurely, Samina smiles as she contemplates her future. She aims to continue her sewing and earn her own livelihood.
Samina has vowed that her daughters will never endure the same fate. “I will ensure they receive an education, so they can evade the misery I endured,” she declares.
*Some names have been altered to safeguard identities.
