Pakistan is a country where traditionally most marriages are arranged by families and occurrences of love marriages, or those where a boy or girl openly choose their future partner are very rare.

Because marriages at a young age are generally preferred - Pakistani law, which requires a minimum age of consent to be 16 for girls and 18 for boys - is often ignored. Yet no measures have been taken by the government to ensure that these marriages are consensual and that the persons being married are at least the minimum age limit.

There are countless instances of marriages being arranged even before the children are born, agreements that are followed through a few years later whether the children involved agree or not. In instances of underage marriages, the age of a girl is changed on her marriage certificate.

The ability to bypass the law and lack of prosecution has resulted in practices of selling girls into marriage in exchange of money or in compensation for crimes and settling of disputes – an act known locally as “vani”.

Though the act is against the law, the low level of prosecutions and lack of interest in these matters by the police and courts has resulted in the use of such practices to this day.

In many parts of Pakistan, where the “Punchait” and “Jirga” systems headed by local elders still prevail, young girls are often given from the offending family to the family of the victim as compensation and the settlement of a dispute between families and tribes.

In most instances, this form of “compensation” is awarded by an informal court and not decided by the family of the young girls. Opposition by the family or the girls against the decision by the “Punchait” or “Jirga” can have consequences of gang rape of the girls or death of family members – again ordered by these same “courts”.

Many more girls from low-income families are sold into “marriage” in exchange for monetary gain. The younger the girl the higher the price for her would be paid.

Though laws exist to prevent such barbaric acts, the lack of enforcement has resulted in these acts occurring across the country.

The Ansar Burney Trust works to trace occurrences of such instances in order to rescue the children, possible even the family and prosecute those responsible.