DADU, Feb 6: Speakers at a seminar here on Monday called for implementing and strengthening laws to curb child marriages which are rampant in the rural areas of Thar.

TV journalist Wali Mohammad said child marriages should be condemned and laws about it be implemented but parents should not be harassed on false information.

Intellectual Hakim Ali Shah Bukhari said the law of land had been subordinated to traditions and people prefer to follow it and child marriages were part of it.

Hakimzadi Rustamani said that in the world, including neighbouring India, legal age of boys and girls was 18 for marriage but in Pakistan age for girls the age had been fixed as 16 years which was gender discrimination.

She appreciated Human Rights Cell in-charge Benazir Jamali for taking notice of a child marriage case in Johi taluka which resulted in postponing of the marriage of a minor girl. She demanded implementation of existing legislation.

Mashooq Birhamani of the Sujag Sansar Organisation said that his organisation had started work on the issue with different stakeholders, including Nikah Khwans, journalists and community members and it also raised the issue at different forums.

He said his NGO was now the member of an international alliance against child marriages, Girls Not Brides, and a representative of the NGO was going to participate in an international conference arranged by the alliance in Mumbai, India, on Feb 9 and 10. Procession:

Residents of the village of Sadiq Panhwar in Siyal union council took out a procession here on Monday in protest against failure of their area MPA for not visiting the constituency.

Carrying banners and placards and raising slogans, they marched on the Katchehry road and staged a demonstration outside the press club.

Their leader Imamuddin Panhwar said residents of the village had voted for MPA Syed Murad Ali Shah and MNA Rafique Ahmed Jamali in the previous general elections, but MPA Shah had forgotten them and had not visited the village after the polls.