Team Muhafiz, a Pakistani comic book series that aims at bringing social change through its short, animated stories, sheds light on the issue of child marriage and its adverse effects on society in its third issue titled, Team Muhafiz and The Child Raiders.
SocialChange
The third installment of the comic book series explores the issue of child marriages in Pakistani society.
Team Muhafiz, a Pakistani comic book series that aims at bringing social change through its short, animated stories, sheds light on the issue of child marriage and its adverse effects on society in its third issue titled, Team Muhafiz and The Child Raiders.
Released recently, Team Muhafiz and The Child Raiders is based on the story of Safiya, a blossoming school girl whose dreams are shattered as her family tries to force her into underage, arranged marriage. The issue centers upon the longstanding tradition of ‘vani’ where young girls are forced to marry as punishment for a crime committed by some male member of their family.
It is a two-part series with script written by Imran Azhar, the brains behind the project, and Samar Minallah Khan, a multi-award winning documentary film-maker, anthropologist and a human rights activist. Illustrated by Babrus Khan, the content is edited by Mira Sethi.
With the third edition, the creators of Team Muhafiz continues their tradition of highlighting social injustices and criminal activities that plague the development of our society; the first book focused on deforestation and the land/timber mafia while the second focused on drug/substance abuse and the drug mafia.
“The main mandate of the company is to create strong local heroes who represent multi-ethnicity and cross-cultures of Pakistan and to highlight social evils of our society,” Azhar told Feminism in India.
Team Muhafiz has been receiving a lot of appreciation for its social efforts from renowned international organizations and publications including UNFPA, Feminism in India, and The International Center for Research on Women among others, and was also nominated for National Innovation Awards 2015.
With actor Adnan Siddiqui as its brand ambassador and strong, socially relevant scripts, Team Muhafiz is on the right path and is a welcome addition to the country’s entertainment scene. While comic book readers include people of all ages, it’s interesting to see a handful of writers focus on creating awareness among children as well. In this regard, Team Muhafiz joins the likes of TV series Burka Avenger that is also using animation to address important social issues.
The next edition of Team Muhafiz is said to focus on acid attacks followed by one on polio awareness.
