GS Paper 2
Syllabus: Indian Society; Social Justice; Issues related to women; Governance
Source: The Hindu
Direction: The article is almost a complete note on “Issues of Child Marriage”. You may note down relevant points.
Context: This is the Hindu explained article. UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage team is on a visit to India to witness state interventions which have helped reduce the prevalence of child marriage.
Child marriage in India is defined as the marriage solemnized between two people where the female is below the age of 18 years or the male is below the age of 21 years.
Status of child marriage in India
As per the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), India is home to the largest number of child brides in the world – accounting for a third of the global total.
- While there has been a decline in the incidence of child marriage nationally (from 54% in 1992-93 to about 23% (2020-21)) and in nearly all states, the pace of change remains slow, especially for girls in the age group 15-18 years.
- Pandemic has increased the instances of Child Marriage.
- Child marriage is more prevalent in rural areas (48 per cent) than in urban areas (29 per cent).
- Eight States have a higher prevalence of child marriage than the national average — West Bengal, Bihar and Tripura performing worse.
- States with a large population of tribal poor have a higher prevalence of child marriage.
Reasons for the prevalence of child marriage in India
- Lack of education:- A big determinant of the age of marriage is education. Around 45% of women with no education and 40% with primary education married before the age of 18, according to NFHS-4.
- Patriarchal attitudes: Child marriage is often seen as a defence against premarital sex, and the duty to protect the girl from sexual violence and harassment is transferred from father to husband.
- Declining sex ratio: – In rural parts of northern India, particularly in Rajasthan, the declining sex ratio has led to the growth of a practice known as Atta Sata where a daughter is exchanged for a daughter-in-law, irrespective of her age
- Ineffective implementation of the law: Lack of proper age documentation and overall lack of protection for the human rights of children along with the ineffective implementation of laws like PCMA, 2006 is also a major hurdle in eliminating child marriages.
- Economics of marriage – Girls are often seen as a liability with a limited economic role. In poor communities, marrying off a daughter means one less mouth.
- Cultural practices -The practice of child marriage in northern India is closely associated with pious occasions such as Akha Teej in Rajasthan when mass child wedding takes place in many districts however administration fails to stop these weddings due to social pressure.
Other determinants of Child Marriage:
Consequences of child marriage:
- It violates children’s rights
- Results in more infant and maternal deaths
- Stunted growth (NFHS-5: prevalence of child stunting is 35.5% in 2019-21)
Fig: Vicious cycle of Child Marriage and Poverty
Laws and policy interventions:
- Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006
- Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012
- Centralised schemes like the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao
- West Bengal’s Kanyashree scheme offers financial aid to girls wanting to pursue higher studies
- Bihar and other States have been implementing a cycle scheme to ensure girls reach safely to school, and U.P. has the scheme to encourage girls to go back to school.
Raising the legal age of marriage as a tool to curb child marriage: Recently the cabinet has approved increasing the marriage age of women from 18 to 21. If implemented, it will bring the age of marriage for both men and women to par.
How the raising the age will help to curb Child marriage
- Increasing marriage will delay the women’s responsibility which is attached to marriage – In many traditional societies, women’s age at marriage acts simultaneously as a gateway to new family roles and the likelihood of producing offspring. Thus increasing the marriage age will delay this responsibility and give a chance to women for self-development.
- Ensures gender equality in the marriage age – Increasing the minimum age of marriage for females to 21 years, ensures gender equality, as the legal marriage age for males is already 21 years, different ages of marriage promote the Stereotype that wives must be younger than their husbands.
- Outlaw child marriages and prevent the abuse of minors: The law prescribes a minimum age of marriage to essentially outlaw child marriages and prevent the abuse of minors.
- Enormous benefits on social and economic fronts include lowering the Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR), improvement of nutrition levels and more opportunities for women to pursue higher education and careers, according to a research note by SBI Ecowrap.
Limitation of the measure to curb the child marriage
- Limited success of the legal measures in the past
- According to NFHS-5 (2019-21), the prevalence of underage marriages remains high, with 23% of women between 20 and 24 years of age married before the age of 18.
- At the same time, the detection of such marriages remains low, with only 785 cases registered under the law in 2020.
- Laws cannot be the shortcut towards social reforms – Social reforms should be brought through improving social indicators like health, education and awareness of the ill effects of child marriage. At the same time incentivises the girl child as well as parents towards the late marriage.
- For example – It is found that the decline in child marriages was not a result of the law penalising it as much as more women getting educated and employed.
- Laws without wide societal support often fail to deliver even when their statement of objects and reasons aims for the larger public good. In a traditional society introducing modern reforms does not always deliver positive results rather it results in the rampant prevalence of the actions illegally.
- Possible increase of sex-selective abortions – Increasing the legal marriage age without changing patriarchal social norms can result in parents feeling even more ‘burdened’ by what they view as an additional responsibility of the girl child, which in turn could lead to an increase in sex-selective practices.
Way forward
- Investing in girls’ education- According to the NFHS-4, the median age of marriage increases from 17.2 years for women with no schooling to 22.7 years for women with 12 or more years of schooling.
- Economic and social empowerment of girls– Financial empowerment often gives individuals a greater say in their households and their own future. It can give girls the ability to say no to early marriage, and the family won’t see them as a liability.
- Targeted social and behaviour change communication (SBCC) campaigns- Social norms that exclude girls and boys from marriage-related decision-making need to change.
- Ensuring registration of marriages- The governments must develop a mechanism to ensure that all marriages (including civil, religious, and customary unions), births, and deaths are mandatorily registered through a system, as a means to track marriages and the age of marriage.
- Raising social awareness on health, nutrition, regressive social norms and inequalities
- Child Marriage Free Villages like Odisha which now has over 12,000 such villages
- Shivraj Patil Committee report in 2011: Ensuring that Child Protection Committees and Child Marriage Prohibition officers are doing the job and activating community support groups
Case study: Karnataka: Percentage of child marriages in Karnataka (from 42% in 2005-06 to 21.3% in 2019-20). Several thousand child marriage prohibition officers have been notified in Karnataka and 90,000 local gram panchayat members have been oriented to spread awareness of child marriage.
Conclusion
One should not address a problem immediately by legislation. One needs to understand the core societal issue. Girls need to get equal opportunities in terms of health, education, and living. Bringing in more women to the workforce like in South Korea and Japan can also help to improve gender imbalance and solve issues of early marriages
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Q. Bring out the reasons for the prevalence of child marriages in India. Will the raising of the legal age of marriage for girls help mitigate the issue? Discuss. (15M)
