LocationsAdvancing Child Marriage Reform and Reproductive Health Rights in Balochistan
By Dr. Luay Shabaneh | UNFPA Representative
Addressing child marriage and reproductive health challenges in a highly conservative environment required more than incremental programming. It required reforms in the underlying narrative, the platforms through which the issue was discussed, and the avenues for stakeholder engagement, alongside legal reform, robust evidence generation, and sustained multi-stakeholder collaboration.
The Challenge
Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest yet least densely populated province, faces deep structural and sociocultural barriers affecting women and girls. Child marriage remains highly prevalent, with approximately two-thirds of all girls married before the age of 18, and a significant proportion before 16 years.
According to UNFPA’s life-course trajectory model for a 10-year-old girl, child marriage sets a sequential pathway of adverse outcomes. It first leads to school dropout, followed by early and repeated pregnancies with limited birth spacing, resulting in increased maternal and long-term morbidity. Consequently, it results in reduced skills development and a significantly lower likelihood of entering or remaining in the workforce. Over time, this translates into limited economic empowerment and sustained financial dependency, increasing the long-term burden on households and society. In this sense, child marriage functions as a key structural driver shaping interconnected health, education, and economic outcomes across the life course.
The Approach
Addressing child marriage and reproductive health challenges in a highly conservative environment required more than incremental programming. It required reforms in the underlying narrative, the platforms through which the issue was discussed, and the avenues for stakeholder engagement, alongside legal reform, robust evidence generation, and sustained multi-stakeholder collaboration.
UNFPA adopted a three-pronged strategy combining evidence generation, technical support to legislation, and coalition-building. A central element of this strategy was shifting the framing of child marriage from a cultural issue to a legal and socioeconomic development concern. This approach was designed to strengthen state accountability while also mitigating the risk of push-back from conservative groups, given that child marriage has often been misinterpreted and justified through cultural narratives in many contexts.
Strengthening the Evidence Base
UNFPA invested in generating context-specific evidence through key analytical tools, including the 2021 Political Economy Analysis (PEA) on child marriage and the 2024 PEA on family planning in Balochistan. These studies quantified the demographic, social, and economic costs of early marriage and low investment in reproductive health services.
By grounding the issue in evidence, they reframed child marriage as a development and public health priority, enabling more constructive engagement with stakeholders holding diverse perspectives.
Technical Support to Legislative Reform
UNFPA engaged at the highest political level to support reform momentum, alongside sustained technical assistance to the provincial government in drafting child marriage restraint legislation. This included alignment with international standards, strengthening enforceability, and integrating maternal and adolescent reproductive health considerations.
In parallel, UNFPA supported a broader reproductive health rights policy and legislative framework. This linked legal reform with health system strengthening, including expanded antenatal care, family planning services, and integration of adolescent health into provincial planning and budgeting.
Multi-stakeholder Engagement and Coalition-building
A central element of the approach was inclusive engagement with parliamentarians, government departments, civil society, and religious scholars. This helped build consensus in a conservative context.
Rather than framing reform as confrontational, UNFPA facilitated dialogue positioning child protection and reproductive health as shared social and public health priorities. This was critical in shifting resistance into ownership and sustaining momentum.
This process contributed to two major policy milestones:
The Balochistan Child Marriage Restraint Act (2025), establishing 18 years as the minimum legal age of marriage for both girls and boys. It criminalizes child marriage as a non-bailable offence and strengthens enforcement through warrant-free action and restrictions on informal settlements.
The Balochistan Reproductive Health Rights Bill (2026), strengthening the legal basis for reproductive health services, expanding access to family planning, and reinforcing maternal and child health systems with UNFPA support.
Lessons Learned
This experience highlights key lessons for complex and conservative settings.
Evidence is a critical entry point for reform, particularly when it reframes sensitive issues in economic and public health terms. Legal reform requires sustained technical accompaniment, including alignment with service delivery systems and budgets. Inclusive coalition-building is essential to navigate normative resistance and build consensus. Finally, change is incremental but achievable when engagement is consistent, respectful, and evidence driven.
By anchoring the issue in systems, service delivery, and public outcomes, UNFPA helped translate dialogue into durable institutional change. The experience underscores that meaningful progress on complex social challenges is both incremental and achievable when grounded in data, partnerships, and state accountability.