Fact-check: No law passed on mandatory second marriage in Pakistan
No such bill has been drafted or passed by the government of Pakistan
Updated Friday May 17 2024
A TikTok clip, amassing over a million views, falsely claims that Pakistan has enacted a law compelling men to marry at least twice.
The claim is baseless.
Claim
A graphic shared on TikTok asserts, “The government of Pakistan has approved the marriage bill. Now it is mandatory for men to marry twice. The law will be effective from May 10, 2024.”
The post has garnered over 1,200,000 views and 24,000 likes on TikTok alone.
The same image and text was shared here, here and here.
Fact
No such bill has been drafted or passed by the government of Pakistan. Raja Naeem Akbar, Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Law and Justice, confirmed to Geo Fact Check that the claim is "not correct".
Waiza Rafique, an Islamabad-based legal adviser to the government’s national commission on the status of women, also debunked the circulating claims as "fake" in a conversation with Geo Fact Check.
Additionally, Sumaira Samad, secretary of the women development department in Punjab, stated she was not aware of any such law being passed.
Geo Fact Check further investigated the claims by checking the website of the National Assembly and the official gazette. As of May 16, no such bill has been passed by the parliament.
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