I strongly condemn any incident where girls are forced to get married: Malala

Author: Web Desk

Youngest Nobel Laureate, Malala Yousafzai, recently spoke up about the prior issues in Pakistan.

It has been estimated in November 2018, 21 percent of girls in Pakistan got married before even stepping the age of 18.

The University of Birmingham in a report suggests that an estimated 1,000 women and girls from religious minorities are kidnaped, forcibly converted and then married off to their abductors every year in Pakistan.

Malala responds to a tweet aimed at her, which inquired, “Hey Malala, a lot has been written about the Hindu girls who were kidnapped in Pakistan. What are your thoughts on the persecution of minority religions around the world?”

Most the people thought Malala will not respond on it but making them wrong she uploads a video message in which she shares her thoughts on the issue.

Malala claims “I would like to say two things about this, firstly child marriages are wrong. No girl under the age of 18 should get married. It should be a personal choice of that girl and she should be able to first complete her education and if she is not interested and says no to marriage then she cannot be forced. I strongly condemn any incident where girls are forced to get married.”

Malala also talked about a case of alleged forced conversion of Hindu girls in Daharki taluka of Sindh’s Ghotki district.

“It should be a personal choice and no one, especially a child shouldn’t be forced to accept any faith or convert to any other religion out of the will,” she asserted. “Whether it’s in Pakistan where Hindu girls are being targeted or Muslim girls in Myanmar or Christian girls in Sri Lanka, I mean in any part of the world I think it’s completely wrong and we should strongly stand against it.”

In 2017, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), up to 3% of Pakistani girls are married before the age of 15 years and 21% are married before they turn 18.

When such a large number of girls are married in their childhood, it results in high rates of maternal and child fatality and this is one of the key reasons that Pakistan’s Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) still stands at 276 per 100,000 live births and the country’s newborn mortality rate is at 55 per 1,000 live births.