"Families will find any means of survival."
Pakistan’s high rate of underage brides was gradually decreasing but after unprecedented floods in 2022, rights workers warn such weddings are increasing due to climate-driven economic insecurity.
The monsoon season is vital for the livelihoods of millions of farmers and food security.
But scientists say climate change is making them heavier and longer, raising the risk of landslides, floods and long-term crop damage.
Many villages in Sindh have not recovered from the 2022 floods, which plunged a third of Pakistan underwater, displaced millions and ruined harvests.
Mashooque Birhmani, the founder of Sujag Sansar, which works to tackle child marriage, said:
“This has led to a new trend of ‘monsoon brides’.
“Families will find any means of survival. The first and most obvious way is to give their daughters away in marriage in exchange for money.”
Since the 2022 floods, child marriage has spiked in villages in Dadu district, one of the worst-hit areas that for months resembled a lake.
In Khan Mohammad Mallah village, 45 underage girls have gotten married since the last monsoon, 15 in May and June 2024.
Village elder Mai Hajani said: “Before the 2022 rains, there was no such need to get girls married so young in our area.
“They would work on the land, make rope for wooden beds, the men would be busy with fishing and agriculture. There was always work to be done.”
Many parents hurried the marriage of their daughters, usually in exchange for money.
Najma Ali was initially excited to become a wife when she married at 14 in 2022 and began living with her in-laws.
She said: “My husband gave my parents 250,000 rupees for our wedding. But it was on loan (from a third party) that he has no way of paying back now.
“I thought I would get lipstick, makeup, clothes and crockery.
“Now I am back home with a husband and a baby because we have nothing to eat.”
Their village is barren and there are no fish left in the polluted water.
Her mother Hakim Zaadi said: “We had lush rice fields where girls used to work.
“They would grow many vegetables, which are all dead now because the water in the ground is poisonous. This has happened especially after 2022.
“The girls were not a burden on us before then.
“At the age girls used to get married, they now have five children, and they come back to live with their parents because their husbands are jobless.”
Child marriages are common in parts of Pakistan. The legal age varies from 16 to 18 in different regions, but the law is rarely enforced.
UNICEF has reported “significant strides” in reducing child marriage, but evidence shows that extreme weather events put girls at risk of becoming brides.
In a report after the 2022 floods, it said: “We would expect to see an 18% increase in the prevalence of child marriage, equivalent to erasing five years of progress.”
Dildar Ali Sheikh planned to marry off his eldest daughter Mehtab while living in an aid camp after being displaced by the floods.
He said:
“When I was there, I thought to myself ‘we should get our daughter married so at least she can eat and have basic facilities’.”
Mehtab was just 10 years old.
Her mother Sumbal Ali Sheikh, who was 18 when she married, added:
“The night I decided to get her married, I couldn’t sleep.”
Sujag Sansar’s intervention led to the wedding being postponed and Mehtab was enrolled in a sewing workshop, allowing her to earn a small income while continuing her education.
But when the monsoon rains fall, she is anxious that her promised wedding will also arrive.
She said: “I have told my father I want to study.
“I see married girls around me who have very challenging lives and I don’t want this for myself.”
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