Meaningless laws

While a law on paper may contain points of immense value, it is rendered insignificant when there is no effective mechanism to turn the contents of the law into reality on the ground. A group of civil society activists and legal experts who recently gathered in Karachi for a seminar on the Sindh Child Marriages Restraint Act 2013 have concluded that the failure to raise awareness among police and local administration regarding child marriage had left the 2013 law totally without meaning. What has been found rather is that when cases under the act were passed along the channels of enforcement at the union council and local levels there was no real action to enforce the law which is intended to prevent the marriage of any person under 18. In actuality, such marriages still take place.

Due to these issues of administration and poor governance, a law which could have played a powerful role in protecting children in a province where child marriage is endemic – as it is in the rest of the country – has been left to exist only on paper. The absence of a mechanism to ensure that the law can be implemented renders it almost completely useless. This is also true of other laws in the province and in the country. In Sindh alone laws to protect women, minorities and other vulnerable groups have made no real difference because of the inability of the government and its implementing agencies to translate them into action. Activists have noted that a lack of resources is one part of the problem. However, we can also say with a degree of confidence that apart from finances or manpower the absence of real will is also a problem. This lack of commitment to people can be seen in many places in all our provinces. The consequence is that many good laws, such as the one preventing child marriages, which could influence so many people are left unimplemented and can bring no improvement in the kinds of abuses people face everywhere.