"How brain-dead do you have to be to glorify child marriage?"
ARY’s Mayi Ri has come under fire for its teenage pregnancy storyline.
The show focuses on child marriages and the impact it has on the children.
It is centred on 15-year-old Annie (Aina Asif) and her younger cousin Fakhir (Samar Abbas).
The pair are compelled to marry each other by Fakhir’s father (Nouman Ijaz) when he becomes ill and expresses a desire to see his son married in his lifetime.
But after getting married, the show has raised eyebrows after it was revealed that Annie is pregnant.
Viewers are not happy with the way Mayi Ri is headed.
On X, one viewer wrote: “Mayi Ri has huge viewership, and there is a pregnant girl who is 15 years old and shown to be happily married.
“How brain-dead do you have to be to glorify child marriage?
“Nobody cares if you show their marriage was a wrong decision in the last episode or whatever. This is just so wrong!”
Another said: “Happily married? They just started to be nice towards each other, and surely this track is introduced to further make people aware of the disadvantages of childhood marriage.
“I think you missed the whole point of the serial.”
One comment pointed out that although the serial was 40 episodes in, there was still no lesson to be learned about child marriages being wrong.
The point was also raised that since the pregnancy was highlighted in the drama teasers, the drama needed to be handled with more sensitivity.
“The pregnancy was in the teasers. Annie and Fakhir are born out of child marriages. It’s a vicious cycle, a blow to Annie’s future – that’s the point.
“The treatment is the issue. Intimacy at a young age is huge. It needed to be handled sensitively. That’s the problem.
“People who are protesting over the pregnancy being a storyline are protesting the wrong thing.
“What they are showing is what they always meant to show. But the way it is being handled isn’t good.”
Many people wondered how child star Aina Asif was given permission by her parents to act in such a drama, with one person writing:
“The casting should have been more responsible. Why cast underage kids? At least cast an actress who is an adult but can pass off as underage.
“This looks uncomfortable considering she is just 15 in real life.”
It was also said that the issues of child marriage would now be highlighted in the serial as teen pregnancy would bring larger issues to the surface.
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