Time to introspect

Recently, three women from completely different localities of Karachi went lacking inside ten days. Earlier this week, nikkahnamas i.e. marriage certificates of two of the women — Dua Zehra Kazmi and Nimra Kazmi — surfaced on social media adopted by two separate video statements. Each women had been present in Punjab and claimed to have left their houses and married of their very own free will. Nevertheless, each households have asserted that the women are below the age of 18. If their claims are true, the marriages can be annulled, and people accountable ought to face prison fees.

Police investigations have revealed that each women met their ‘spouses’ on-line through gaming chat rooms or social media, which has raised alarm over the misuse of digital media and the necessity for regulation. In all chance, many dad and mom will use these incidents to impose stricter guidelines on their youngsters and stop them from accessing social media. Nevertheless, this may be counterproductive. In reality, there’s good motive to consider that our kids are resorting to excessive measures equivalent to eloping to flee the suffocating environments at residence. Most coming-of-age youngsters expertise hormonal adjustments, temper swings and bodily and emotional development, which they’re unable to navigate in a wholesome approach. The lack to debate these adjustments with their dad and mom or different members of the family, coupled with regressive guidelines and limits, makes them really feel conflicted. Additionally, social media has enabled us to devour content material from internationally, which might cloud youngsters’s understanding and set unreasonable precedents.

Dad and mom can now not proceed blaming their youngsters for every part; they have to take these latest incidents as a possibility to self-reflect and take into account stepping out of the retrogressive norms. Importantly, marriage shouldn’t be overemphasised as an finish purpose however as an everyday life occasion that takes place in due age and time. To make sure a wholesome residence surroundings, dad and mom ought to permit their youngsters to have company and autonomy and may behave compassionately with youngsters when coping with delicate points. In any other case, such incidents will develop into an everyday prevalence and tarnish our social material.

Printed in The Categorical Tribune, April 30^th, 2022.

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