Reviewed and updated 20 August 2026 against the published Balochistan provincial legislation.
By Aneeta Prem MBE
Balochistan’s Child Marriages Restraint Act 2025 is a significant provincial reform in Pakistan.
The Act applies across Balochistan and came into force at once when promulgated in November 2025. It defines an adult as a person of either sex aged 18 or over and treats a marriage involving a person below that age as a child marriage.
That gives the province a clear age rule: 18 for girls and boys.
What the Act does
The legislation creates offences around contracting, facilitating and solemnising child marriage and places responsibilities on adults and people involved in marriage registration or ceremony.
It also makes clear that puberty or physical appearance is not a basis for treating a person under 18 as an adult for the purposes of the Act.
That is an important safeguard because age protection should not depend on assumptions about maturity or appearance.
This is a provincial law, not one national rule for Pakistan
Pakistan’s legal position on marriage age has developed through provincial and territorial legislation rather than one uniform rule applying identically everywhere.
The Balochistan Act therefore needs to be described precisely: it is a provincial law for Balochistan.
Other jurisdictions in Pakistan have made their own reforms. Punjab also enacted child-marriage legislation in 2026. Anyone dealing with a live safeguarding or legal case should check the law applying in the relevant province or territory rather than assume one rule covers the whole country.
Child marriage and forced marriage are not identical
The two issues can overlap, but they should not be treated as synonyms.
Child marriage concerns age. Forced marriage concerns the absence of free and full consent.
A marriage involving a child may also involve coercion or pressure, but the safeguarding case against child marriage does not depend on proving that the child physically resisted or used the word “forced”.
Clear language helps professionals identify which legal protection applies and what evidence is needed.
Why the minimum age matters
A firm minimum age removes arguments about whether a younger person appears mature enough or whether family agreement makes the marriage acceptable.
It also supports wider child-protection goals around education, health and freedom from exploitation.
UNICEF has long identified child marriage as a practice that disproportionately affects girls and can be associated with interrupted education, early pregnancy, economic dependence and increased exposure to violence.
Those are population-level risks. They should not be used to assume the circumstances of every individual child, but they explain why minimum-age legislation matters.
Law is only one part of protection
A strong statute does not guarantee that every child can use it.
Implementation depends on accurate birth and identity records, marriage registration, police practice, courts, awareness among religious and civil officiants, and safe routes for a child or concerned adult to report risk.
Where family pressure is involved, disclosure may itself increase danger. Protection therefore needs safeguarding practice as well as prosecution.
Why this matters to UK safeguarding
Forced-marriage and child-marriage cases can cross borders.
A child or young adult in the UK may have family connections overseas, travel plans or a proposed ceremony in another jurisdiction. UK professionals should follow UK safeguarding law and guidance for the person at risk while also understanding that overseas marriage law varies.
Knowing that a province has changed its law can be useful. It should never be treated as a substitute for immediate UK safeguarding action where somebody here is at risk.
Language and responsibility
In my own work, I use the term dishonour abuse where family reputation is used to justify coercion or violence.
That language should not be imposed on every child-marriage case. Its purpose is to place responsibility for abusive conduct on those exercising control, not on the person resisting it.
What success should be measured by
The Act should ultimately be judged by more than the number of prosecutions.
Useful measures include whether under-18 marriages are prevented, whether registrations are checked properly, whether children can remain in education, whether reporting routes are safe and whether enforcement is consistent across the province.
Those outcomes show whether the statute is becoming practical protection.
Final word
Balochistan’s 2025 law creates a clear provincial boundary: marriage before 18 is not permitted under the Act.
That is an important legal reform. The next question is implementation.
A minimum age protects only when the institutions around it are willing and able to make that protection real.
Sources and further reading
- Balochistan Code: provincial legislation
- Government of Balochistan Prosecution Department
- UNICEF: child marriage data
