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62. In the Province of Punjab, which is the largest province with more than half the population of the country, education has been made compulsory for children between the ages of 5 and 10. The other provinces are expected to promulgate similar laws. This means that a child for the purposes of compulsory education is anyone who is below 10 (subject to the minimum age of 5).
279. Legal measures: The Punjab Government has promulgated an act entitled "Punjab Compulsory Primary Education Act 1994". This act defines a child as a person, whose age at the beginning of the school year is not less than 5 years or more than 10 years. Normally primary education in Pakistan means seven years of education. The Act makes non-compliance by parents/guardians punishable with a fine.
The NWFP (North-West Frontier Province) is in the final stages of promulgating such an act, whereas the other two provinces are working on this issue.
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| Minimum age of employment |
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58. The Constitution of Pakistan, Article 11 (3), lays down that no child below the age of 14 years shall be engaged in any factory or mine or any hazardous employment.
59. In the Employment of Children Act, 1991, section 2 (iii) (Annex 7, Appendix XVI) a child is a person who is less than 14 years of age. An adolescent under this act is a person who has completed his fourteenth year, but not the eighteenth year. The Act attempts to regulate the conditions of work for children and to prohibit their employment in certain occupations. It attempts to bring uniformity in the age of employment of minors in various trades and also provides for the setting up of a National Committee on the Rights of the Child (sect. 5).
60. Pledging of labour and bonded labour. The Children (Pledging of Labour) Act, 1933 (Annex 7, Appendix XIV) defines a child as a person who is 15 years of age. This law prohibits the making of all such agreements as would result in the pledging of the labour of children. It also bans the employment of those children whose labour had been pledged. This has been supplemented by the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act 1992. Furthermore, Pakistan is giving serious consideration to ratifying the new ILO Convention (No. 182) on the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour.
396. Economic exploitation in terms of the provisions of the CRC, the labour laws of Pakistan and the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) Memorandum of Understanding signed by ILO and Pakistan means work performed by underage children, work of a hazardous or exploitative nature that is likely to interfere with the child's education or is harmful to his or her health, his or her mental, spiritual, moral and social development. It covers children between the ages of 5 and 14, for whom working is unlawful, and those above 14, for whom it is permitted.
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| Minimum age for marriage |
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55. The meaning of "child" for the purposes of marriage is governed by the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929 (Annex 7, Appendix XVII). According to this act, a child is a person who, if a male, is under 18 years of age and, if a female is under 16 years of age (sect. 2 (a)). A "child marriage", under the Act, means a marriage any of the contracting parties to which is a child (sect. 2 (b)). The Act aims to ban child marriages. If such a marriage takes place, the parties are to be punished with imprisonment or with fine or with both. Persons performing the contract or directing it are to be punished in the same way.
108. Where the marriage of a young girl is arranged by her guardian, she can repudiate the marriage on the attainment of puberty. This provision of Islamic law is called the option of puberty and is incorporated in the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1939 (Annex 19) as section 2 (vii) and provides an additional ground to a woman on the basis of which she can have her marriage dissolved.
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| Minimum age for criminal responsibility |
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47. The Pakistan Penal Code, 1860 (PPC) declares that nothing is an offence that is done by a child under seven years of age (sect. 82). A child above the age of 7 years and under 12 years of age can commit an offence, under the PPC, if such child has sufficient maturity of understanding to judge the nature and consequences of his act (sect. 83). Mental maturity influences the court in the fixation of penalty. Under the new section 299 of the PPC, an "adult" is a person who has attained the age of 18 years and a "minor" is a person who is not an adult. The child who can have criminal responsibility under this law, then, is a minor who has attained maturity of understanding, and his age may extend from 7 to 18 years.
368. Age of criminal responsibility. The Government of Pakistan has recently promulgated Juvenile Justice System Ordinance, 2000, wherein the age of a child has been raised to 18 years. Being a federal law, it will override the provincial laws and thus the age of criminal responsibility of juvenile delinquents will be harmonized with the provisions set forth in the Outlines. Earlier, the Pakistan Penal Code laid down the age of criminal responsibility as 7 years, with an added provision that a child between the age of 7 and 12 "who has not attained sufficient maturity of understanding to judge the nature and consequences of his conduct on that occasion" shall not be held criminally responsible. This determination, however, rested upon the court.
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