Sindh’s Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah on Sunday ordered a probe on child marriages in the Dadu district, a statement from his office said following recent media coverage of the issue.

He ordered Hyderabad’s commissioner to submit a report on the marriage of 45 underage girls in Dadu’s Khan Muhammad Mallah village. Reports indicate that these marriages have occurred since the last monsoon, with 15 taking place in May and June of this year.

The girls’ parents have stated that they hurried the marriage of their daughters, usually in exchange for money, to “save them from poverty”.

The chief minister directed the formation of a committee to conduct a detailed inquiry into the village and requested a report on the social, economic, and legal status of the girls involved.

“What is the current condition of the married girls? Submit a report covering every aspect so that the issue can be resolved,” the chief minister directed the commissioner, according to the statement.

He also requested that the commissioner provide recommendations in the inquiry and include in the report whether the married girls were from flood-affected families, as well as the amount of aid they received.

Child marriages are 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.

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 put girls at risk.

“We would expect to see an 18 per cent increase in the prevalence of child marriage, equivalent to erasing five years of progress,” it said in a report after the 2022 floods.

Additional input from AFP