Child marriage is prevalent in Pakistan due to several reasons including deeply entrenched traditions and customs, poverty, lack of awareness and/or access to education, and lack of security. The practise takes away a girl’s right to safe and healthy childhood, quality and complete education that can lead to decent economic opportunities, and social and political empowerment.

The eradication of child marriage is an important and acknowledged challenge to ensure better lives for millions of women. Our mission with this campaign was to actively protect girls from child marriage by urging lawmakers to act.

UN Women is the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. A global champion for women and girls, UN Women was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide.

In Pakistan, UN Women has actively fought against the practise of child marriage.

Pakistan has the 6th highest number of girls married before the age of 18 in the world. According to UNICEF, the country has nearly 19 million child brides. The UN children's agency estimates that around 4.6 million were married before the age of 15 and 18.9 million before they turned 18.

Across Pakistan, civil society has been at the forefront of fighting to end child marriage, pushing for tougher laws and working closely with communities, authorities and religious groups to change attitudes.

A DAWN report suggested that "In Pakistan, there are various other causes of child marriages, the most prevalent being weak legislation to ensure implementation of existing laws."

To motivate lawmakers to pass a bill protecting children from child marriage, UN Women chose to target leaders with a direct mail campaign.

Members of the National Assembly of Pakistan received an invitation to a fictional child's wedding. Through a wedding card that would suit a child's wedding, designed entirely by children.

We strategised that our most effective way to help change the law would be to reach lawmakers directly, one-on-one, and to send them a personal motivational device to implement a law protecting children from child marriage.

Weddings are huge in Pakistan, and one particular facet of weddings in the country is the personal delivery of printed wedding cards - it is considered offensive to not receive one as an invite. Millions of colorful cards are printed every year that are delivered by hand to guests.

We chose to follow a similar practise. The wedding, however, was that of a child bride. And so, of course, the invitation needed to reflect the same.

We invited dozens of young girls, ranging in age from 5 to 15, from all socio-economic backgrounds, and allowed them to freely draw and sketch. One of the girls that contributed was even an actual child bride.

We then took a number of the designs and sketches and combined them to form six chosen wedding cards, each reflecting a different area of the country.

These were then dispatched directly to Members of the National Assembly, and other leaders and influencers in the country.

A short film explaining the idea accompanied with social posts was also launched.

We succeeded in reaching our target audience, receiving an almost immediate response from Members of Parliament, who chose to give statements holding the wedding cards, and asking other lawmakers to join them in the fight against child marriages.

More than a dozen lawmakers have so far joined our cause. In a session at the National Assembly of Pakistan, leaders held up the Child Wedding Cards to demand a law be put into place to raise the minimum marriageable age to 18.