New Pakistan law allows registration of Hindu marriages

A Pakistani Hindu couple at a mass wedding ceremony in Karachi, on March 19, 2017. Some 62 Hindu couples participated in the ninth mass-marriage ceremony organised by Pakistan Hindu Council, as part oShow more

ISLAMABAD // Hindus living in predominantly Muslim Pakistan are to be permitted to register their marriages for the first time since partition from India in 1947.

President Mamnoon Hussain of Pakistan has signed into law a bill which the government said will “safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Hindu families”.

The law will also allow Hindus to file for divorce and remarry, and will protect the financial security of women and children after divorce.

Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, head of the Pakistan Hindu Council, said the legislation would solve many problems faced by the Hindu community in Pakistan, where discrimination and violence against religious minorities is commonplace.

“This law is a welcome step ... It will remove all difficulties for the registration of Hindu marriages,” he said.

Following the end of British rule in South Asia in 1947, the sub-continent was partitioned into mainly Hindu India and mainly Muslim Pakistan, triggering widespread religious bloodshed in which hundreds of thousands were killed and millions displaced.

Since then, Pakistani Hindus – who number around 8.2 million in the country of an estimated 180 million people – have been unable to acquire the legal documentation needed to register marriages and annulments.

The province of Sindh, in southern Pakistan, where most Pakistani Hindus live, passed its own provincial legislation last year allowing Hindus to register marriages.

* Agence France-Presse