According to the organization Girls Not Brides, over 21 percent of the girls in Pakistan enter into marriage before the age of 18.

CII Chairman Mohammad Khan Sheerani reiterated in 2014 that girls can be married at age nine, so long as puberty is apparent, adding that attempts to revisit the issue are pointless and unnecessary.

“Parliament cannot create legislation that is against the teachings of the Holy Quran or Sunnah,” Sheerani said in 2014, according to The Express Tribune.