With the Coronavirus resulting in widespread job losses and economic hardships, particularly in rural areas, there is an epidemic of child marriages
It was a frantic phone call to her school teacher by a desperate 13-year-old Radha (name changed) that saved her from being married off by her impoverished parents at Anoopshahr town of UP’s Bulandshahr district in June. In October, the Karnataka Police saved a 14-year-old from a similar fate in Ballari district. Acting on a tip-off, the police raided the marriage hall, where the wedding was taking place, and arrested eight people under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006. These are not isolated cases or an aberration, though the legal age for the marriage of women in India is 18 years. According to the UNICEF, India accounts for a third of the child brides globally. And now, with the Coronavirus resulting in widespread job losses and economic hardships, particularly in rural areas, there is an epidemic of child marriages in the country. As usual desperate parents, suffering from the socio-economic impact of the outbreak, are trying to get rid of “the extra mouth to feed, clothe and educate.” Predictably, the girl child is tradeable.
Incidentally, India is not alone. Around the world, Save the Children warns that a whopping 2.5 million more underage girls could be pushed into marriage in the next five years because of the difficult socio-economic conditions created by the pandemic. In its Global Girlhood Report 2020, the charity has predicted that 5,00,000 more girls are at risk of becoming child brides. This will take up the total number of child marriages to around 12.5 million this year.
Closer home, the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development reported 5,584 cases of child marriage between March and June this year. The children’s helpline, Childline, saw a 17 per cent rise in distress calls during the same period. These are worrying statistics because there are already a whopping 17.26 million married children and adolescents within the age group of 10-19 years (seven per cent of the population in the same age group) in India. This is according to child rights group CRY’s new study, that was released ahead of the International Day of the Girl Child’ on October 11. “The data also reveals that girls between 10 and 19 years of age account for 75 per cent of all the married children in India,” says the distressing study. Trends show that while child marriage affects both girls and boys, its impact on the health, education and human rights of girls, especially from marginalised communities, is higher. Experts say there is also an urgent need to strengthen implementation of the Prohibition of the Child Marriage Act, 2006, particularly at the grassroots, where the ease of social custom overwhelms the need to register complaints.
In fact, so prevalent is the practice that a task-force to re-examine and raise the minimum age of marriage for girls was set up on June 2 by the Union Ministry for Women and Child Development. In mid-October, a worried Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the Government would soon take a decision on this vexed issue after it received the committee’s report. However, eradication of child marriage in India is a complex issue because it is not just about poverty, it is also about changing rigid and regressive mindsets of a largely patriarchal society, repressing the sexuality of girls and carrying the burden of their safety in a society where victim-shaming is a norm rather than an anomaly. We, as a society, have to ask ourselves the uncomfortable question as to why do parents in the hinterland, despite the flood of girl child schemes and incentives, too, still prize boys over girls? That’s because beyond a point, it is cold economics. Parents in the countryside believe that sons will continue to keep contributing to the family income and hold ancestral land even after they are married. Or such is the expectation. That’s why, underprivileged parents prefer to send boys to school and college and not girls. Even when they do send a girl child to school, her education is the first casualty if things get difficult financially. So, till we consider the education of a girl child a dispensable privilege and not a guaranteed right and deprive them of the opportunity to pursue higher education and hence the hope of a paying career, this malaise will not stop.
Another major and more sinister reason for girls in economically weaker societies being married off at a tender age, whether it is in urban India or the countryside, is the regressive mindset over the sexuality and purity of women. In a country obsessed with chastity, the loss of virginity/innocence is considered a great shame and a calamity. So burdened with the task of having to protect the girl child, who is neither safe in public places nor within the home, the parents prefer to marry her off as soon as they can, so that they can be absolved of all responsibility and are done with the onerous task of having to protect her “izzat (honour).” Many reports have also drawn a link between increasing cases of female foeticide in villages to increasing rape cases in recent years.
Unless we change our archaic mindsets and start treating boys and girls as equals, give them both equal nutrition and educational opportunities so that girls too can pursue flourishing careers and provide for their parents in their old age, more Radhas will keep on getting married off like cattle. Sold to the highest bidder by parents mired in poverty. More importantly, till we teach our men and boys to respect women/girls and stop all forms of gender-based and sexual violence, poor and unlettered parents, who are unaware of the detrimental effects on the mental and physical health of girls married off in their childhood, will continue to subject them to this tortuous tradition. Till we, as a society, step out of our comfort zone and report each and every case of child marriage that comes to our notice, we will never see the end of this malaise. If we look the other way when the crime of child marriage involves our domestic help, driver, gardener, washerman or security guard, then we too, are a party to this heinous tradition. We, too, are equally responsible for pushing a hapless child into a world of untold misery and suffering. And we need to stop expecting the Government and the NGOs to solve all societal problems and give us a perfect world. As a society it is incumbent upon us to ensure good health and nutrition of girls. We must ensure that they complete 12 years of schooling and get life skill education and opportunities for higher studies. It is a tragedy and a travesty when someone who can afford to spend on an expensive phone, car, handbag or shoes cannot spend 2000 rupees a month to sponsor a child’s education. Till we learn to work together as a society, and in the spirit of “each one, teach one,” we cannot break this vicious cycle of inter-generational deprivation, malnutrition, poverty and lack of basic human rights. There has to be an integrated and coordinated approach to tackle the root causes proportionately, namely fighting societal malaise with awareness programmes, strengthening laws and enforcing them diligently, building a safety and rehabilitative network for the abused and most importantly skilling and empowering girls from a young age so that they know when to exercise their rights. Otherwise, girls in the countryside will not be seen as anything more than future brides, a liability rather than an asset.
(The writer is Senior Editor, The Pioneer)
Monday, 07 December 2020 | Reena Amos Dyes
