The Lahore High Court has ruled that under Islamic law, a marriage contracted after attaining puberty is valid, even if the individual is below the age set in the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929. In Punjab, the minimum marriage age is 18 for males and 16 for females. Justice Tariq Mahmood Bajwa delivered the ruling while dismissing a petition filed by a father seeking to recover his 15-year-old daughter. The father claimed his daughter, aged
Child Rights in Focus
SUKKUR: The disappearance of 11-year-old Saira Soomro from the mansion of a local Pir in Bharchundi, Deharki, district Ghotki, has triggered widespread protests and public outrage across the province. As per details, the Soomro family, facing repeated threats and violence from members of the Bhutti community, had sought refuge at the residence of the influential Pir in Bharchundi. Fateh Muhammad Soomro, father of the missing girl, entrusted his daughter to the care of the
CHAKWAL: Two separate incidents of sexual assault have been reported in Chakwal, with both cases involving the alleged recording of videos to blackmail the victims. In the first case, a 14-year-old ninth-grade student from the village of Bhabbhar, within the jurisdiction of Dohman Police Station, was allegedly assaulted by a local shopkeeper. While returning home from tuition, the shopkeeper forcibly dragged her into his shop, locked the door, and allegedly assaulted her. She further
RAWALPINDI: As the outbreak of conjunctivitis (pink eye) spreads across the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, there has been a significant surge in the prices of eye-related medications, including eye drops and rose water, in the open market. Essential eye drops for conjunctivitis have reportedly vanished from local stores. With the rising cost of these treatments, the number of conjunctivitis cases is increasing at an alarming rate. In the past three days alone,
RAWALPINDI: A minor girl, abducted by an unidentified person from outside a private hospital on the night of September 23, was reunited with her parents on September 24. Gulzar Masih, a resident of Medical College Staff colony lodged an FIR with the Banni police saying that he brought his daughter-in-law, a dengue patient, to Benazir Bhutto Hospital, along with his granddaughter, eight-year-old Kayanat and grandson Ali Shah. He was standing at the BBH gate
HYDERABAD: An eight-month-old girl, declared a poliovirus carrier by the National Institute of health (NIH) Islamabad, already passed away before her second sample was to be collected by local health officials here. According to information shared officially by the district administration here on September 23, Umrah, daughter of Salman, resident of Union Committee-47 in Paretabad town, was admitted in Liaquat University Hospital (LUH) Hyderabad on Aug 22 after developing symptoms of weakness in her
ISLAMABAD: The Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination campaign, which has been targeting 13 million girls aged 9 to 14, has so far achieved only 34 percent of its target, it was revealed on September 24. So far, only 4.5 million girls out of the targeted 13 million have been vaccinated against the virus, which causes cervical cancer. The update was shared with State Minister for National Health Dr Malik Mukhtar Ahmad Bharath, who visited the HPV
SHANGLA: The assistant commissioner, Chakesar, on September 24 sealed a madressah in the Hospital Colony Chakesar in Shangla after a student complained of physical assault there. According to the deputy commissioner, Shangla, Muhammad Fawad Khan, a student visited the assistant commissioner’s office in Chakesar and complained to the AC about a teacher who physically assaulted him. The DC said in his statement that following the teenager’s complaint, the AC Chakesar, Shah Nawaz Khan, reached
SAHIWAL: Muhammad Tariq, Additional District and Sessions Judge, Child Protection Court, Sahiwal, formally handed over the custody of the 18 minor children, 17 of them from Balochistan, who were recovered from an orphanage to the district office of the Child Protection and Welfare Bureau (CPWB) here on September 24. The minor children, all under the age of 10, were recovered from an orphanage operated by an unregistered organisation — Ahmed Welfare Foundation — in
LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly and Unicef Pakistan on September 24 signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) here for the promotion of child rights, education, health and social development. Under the MoU, Unicef will provide technical assistance to the Punjab Assembly and support the Parliamentary Caucuses on Child Rights, Special Children, Women and the SDGs Task Force. It will assist the standing committees in evidence-and-data-based policy making and also conduct a public expenditure review of
LAHORE: A sessions court on Wednesday awarded life imprisonment on four counts to a young man for killing his mother, two sisters and a brother under the alleged influence of the online game PUBG. Kahna police had registered a case against the convict, Ali Zain, who was 14-year-old at the time of occurrence in 2022. Additional District & Sessions Judge Riaz Ahmad announced the guilty verdict, awarding Zain life imprisonment (25 years) on four counts and
Women, students, senior citizens and persons with disabilities will travel free of cost on Punjab’s first electric bus service, Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif announced on Monday while inaugurating the project in Sahiwal. After riding one of the new buses herself, the chief minister called the initiative “a milestone in modern and affordable public transport.” She said 30 buses have been allocated for the city and 62 for the division, with the regular fare