Three-year-old girl sold into marriage for $9000 under 'walwar' custom sparks international outrage

The alleged marriage of a 3-year-old girl to a 60-year-old man for 2.5 million Pakistani rupees ($9,000) under the Pashto walwar custom in Balochistan has drawn international outrage. Police arrested the girl's father, Abdul Baqi, and are searching for the alleged husband, Salah Uddin. The case is linked to the killing of the girl's older sister, Shukria Bibi, whose husband has been arrested on suspicion of murder.

The alleged marriage of a 3-year-old girl to a 60-year-old man for 2.5 million Pakistani rupees, around $9,000, has drawn attention to child marriage and the traditional practice of walwar in Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan. Police in the border city of Chaman arrested the girl's father, Abdul Baqi, after the case surfaced on social media. The 60-year-old man, identified as Salah Uddin, remains at large. Walwar is a Pashto term for money paid by a groom or his family to the family of a bride. At the time police intervened, the alleged marriage existed only on paper because the full walwar payment had not been made. The case drew widespread attention online, prompting Balochistan Chief Minister Mir Sarfraz Bugti to direct authorities to investigate. The investigation has also become linked to the killing of the girl's older sister, Shukria Bibi, about two weeks earlier in Kuchlak. Police allege that Baqi had previously arranged Shukria's marriage, when she was 13, to Kamran, Salah Uddin's son, in exchange for a walwar payment of 1.5 million rupees. Quetta police arrested Shukria's husband, Kamran, on suspicion of killing her. Balochistan law prohibits child marriage; the Balochistan Child Marriages Restraint Act, 2025, sets the minimum marriage age at 18. Child marriage remains a substantial problem across Pakistan despite a long-term decline, with UNICEF estimating about 20.5 million girls and women living in Pakistan were married before age 18.