The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on Wednesday concluded its review of Pakistan’s second periodic report under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, welcoming the 2025 legal amendment raising the minimum age of marriage to 18. The conclusion of the review marks the end of a formal examination of Pakistan’s record under the Covenant, a treaty that covers economic, social and cultural rights and requires states to report periodically on their progress.
Committee expert Michael Windfuhr welcomed the 2025 amendment to the Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929, which raised the minimum marriage age to 18 for both males and females. The change is significant because it sets a single minimum age for both sexes, removing any distinction that previously existed and bringing the law into line with the standard the committee regards as appropriate. The welcome from the committee signals that the amendment was seen as a positive step in the protection of children, particularly girls, from early marriage.
The review was not limited to the marriage-age law. Experts sought details on child brides, rehabilitation of flood victims and reconstruction efforts. The questions on child brides reflect the committee’s interest in how the law is applied in practice, and what happens to children who have already been married at a young age. The questions on flood victims and reconstruction point to the long-term consequences of the devastating floods of 2022, which destroyed homes and livelihoods on a massive scale and left millions of people in need of support.
The Pakistani delegation said 600,000 of the 2.1 million homes destroyed in the 2022 floods had been rebuilt, with reconstruction of the rest under way. The figure gives a sense of the scale of the task: more than two million homes were destroyed, and while 600,000 have been rebuilt, a large number remain to be reconstructed. The delegation’s statement that work on the remainder is under way indicates that the process is continuing, but also that it is far from complete more than four years after the floods.
The delegation comprised representatives of the Ministry of Law and Justice, the Ministry of Human Rights and the Permanent Mission of Pakistan to the United Nations Office at Geneva. The composition of the delegation reflects the range of issues covered by the review, from legal reform to human rights policy and diplomacy. The presence of officials from both the law and human rights ministries suggests that the government sought to present a coordinated account of its record, while the Permanent Mission provided the link to the UN system in Geneva.
The committee’s welcome for the marriage-age amendment should be seen alongside its broader interest in bonded labour, which the review also flagged. Bonded labour remains a concern in Pakistan, particularly in sectors where workers are tied to employers through debt, and the committee’s attention to the issue underlines that legal reform in one area does not by itself resolve the wider challenges facing vulnerable workers and children. The review process is designed to examine the full range of rights under the Covenant, and the discussion of bonded labour forms part of that wider assessment.
The review of Pakistan’s second periodic report follows the pattern of UN treaty-body examinations, in which a state presents its report, experts ask questions, and the committee then issues its observations. The conclusion of the review on Wednesday means that the formal dialogue has ended, and the committee’s findings will now be set out in its concluding observations. Those observations will likely note both the progress represented by the marriage-age amendment and the areas where further action is needed, including on child marriage in practice, flood rehabilitation and bonded labour.
For Pakistan, the outcome is a mixed picture: recognition for a concrete legal change, and continued scrutiny of the implementation challenges that remain. The rebuilding of flood-damaged homes, the protection of children from early marriage and the elimination of bonded labour are all long-term tasks that require sustained effort beyond the passage of a single law.
Source: Dawn.
