Pakistan, climate change fuels forced marriages

Extreme weather events driven by global warming have devastating social impacts in nations like Pakistan.

The consequences of climate changes, from the point of view environmental, are known:the multiplication of the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.The waves of heat and of drought.The raising of sea ​​level and the consequent erosion of the coasts, with the risk of the disappearance of some small island nations, as well as mass migrations.Or even the fusion of polar ice caps, with all that this will entail in terms of rebalancing the ocean currents.And also from an economic point of view, hundreds of studies have highlighted the enormous costs that will need to be addressed to address the impacts of global warming.

“At first I was happy, but I didn't understand”

However, there are also other consequences, less expected, but directly linked to the climate crisis.One of these comes from Pakistan:an investigation of the French newspaper Le Monde tells how an increasing number of families have lost theirs lands because of hurricanes of exceptional intensity.Private of any form of subsistence, they oblige theirs daughters, often very young, a get married, to be able to get a dowry and be able to nourish the components of each nucleus.

The transalpine newspaper tells the story of a little girl who had just turned 13, whose parents announced to her marriage at the beginning of 2023.“At the beginning – he says – I thought about the gifts I would receive.I imagined lipstick, clothes, necklaces and bracelets.I didn't realize that getting married would mean spending my life with a man older than me.But because of the floods, my parents lost their lands and had no choice.”At the time of the interview, carried out on video, the little girl was cradling her son in her arms newborn, a few months old.

The impact of the giant floods of 2022 in Pakistan

His is not an isolated case.In his village of Khan Mohammad Mallah, in the province of Sind, the founder of the non-governmental organization Sujag Sansar, Mashooque Birhmani, who fights against forced marriages children, he reviewed them 45 only from the beginning of 2024.A third of which were celebrated in the months of May and June:right before the start of the season monsoons.

The latter have been vital for decades for the farmers of Pakistan, guaranteeing essential irrigation for crops.But precisely because of climate change their intensity has become such that it is often devastating.The floods that hit the Asian country between the months of June and August 2022 they provoked 1,700 deaths, affected in various ways 33 million people, killed 700 thousand head of livestock, destroyed 250 thousand homes, three thousand kilometers of roads, 130 bridges and 1.8 million hectares of land agricultural.

The law in Pakistan prohibits forced marriages, but it is often not enforced

Second a study conducted by two researchers from the Islamia University of Bahawalpur, after other floods, those of 2010 (1,760 deaths and 10 million people without a home) the rate of forced marriages of girls between 15 and 19 years old went from 10.7 to 16 percent.A dynamic daughter of the total desperation of those who no longer know how to survive.

To this day Pakistan is still the sixth country in the world in the sad ranking of the nations with the greatest number of married minors.However, the law would prohibit this practice:the legal age for marriage varies from 16 to 18, depending on the region.And the problem is that the legislation is rarely enforced.

The fight against the climate crisis is also a battle against social catastrophes

And crises, starting precisely from those caused by natural disasters, push families to take steps that they often later regret.In 2023, Unicef ​​confirmed it clearly:“There is evidence that extreme weather events are linked to an increased risk of forced marriages.After the flood of 2022 we expect an increase of 18 percent”.Which means erasing five years of progress made in Pakistan.

A solution to the problem, obviously, can only come from a process cultural emancipation.But it is equally clear that climate change affects people in an exponentially more serious way most vulnerable populations of the Earth.Fighting against global warming is therefore a battle to guarantee a peaceful future for future generations, but also to avoid social catastrophes in the present.