Civil society representatives, including the head of the National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW), recently expressed concern over the absence of laws and constitutional protections for women in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan region.

To empower women in Gilgit-Baltistan, they wanted swift legislation. The NCSW recently organised a two-day National Consultation on Child Marriage, with the second round taking place in Gilgit on Friday, with the assistance of partners United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Unicef, and UN-Women, ANI reported.

GB Minister of Women’s Development Ms Dilshad Bano, GB Assembly Speaker Nazir Ahmed Advocate, GB Secretary of Social Welfare Development Fida Hussain, experts, policymakers, and representatives from federal and GB departments were among the attendees, Dawn reported as quoted ANI.

Speakers voiced worry about the lack of regulations safeguarding women in the area, especially the practice of early child marriage.

A law to prohibit child marriage was going to be introduced in the GB assembly, according to Speaker of the GB Assembly Nazir Ahmed Advocate, Dawn reported as quoted by the newspaper.

He said that a law to ban underage marriages was presented to the GB legislature in 2015, but it has not yet been tabled.