‘Monsoon brides’: Floods drive Pakistan child marriages

DADU (AFP) — As monsoon rains were about to break over Pakistan, 14-year-old Shamila and her 13-year-old sister Amina were married off in exchange for money, a decision their parents made to help the family survive the threat of floods.

Parents told Agence France-Presse that they hurried the marriage of their daughters to save them from poverty, usually in exchange for money.

Shamila’s mother-in-law, Bibi Sachal, said they gave 200,000 Pakistan Rupees ($720) to the young bride’s parents — a major sum in a region where most families survive on around one dollar a day.

Many villages in the agricultural belt of Sindh have not recovered from the 2022 floods, which plunged a third of the country underwater, displaced millions and ruined harvests.

“This has led to a new trend of ‘monsoon brides,’” said Mashooque Birhmani, the founder of the non-government organization Sujag Sansar, which works with religious scholars to combat child marriage.

“Families will find any means of survival. The first and most obvious way is to give their daughters away in marriage in exchange for money.”

Birhmani said since the 2022 floods, child marriage has spiked in villages in Dadu district, one of the worst-hit areas that for months resembled a lake.