Child Marriage Reduction in India

The steering committee of a global program to end child marriage is visiting India to see state interventions that have helped reduce child marriage prevalence.

Important Findings

The Committee:

• The UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage team is visiting.

Child brides are becoming more common:

• It is in response to an estimated increase in the number of child brides as a result of the pandemic.
• As a result of the global pandemic, 10 million children may become child brides.

Annual review:

• Child marriage in India fell from 47.4% in 2005-06 to 26.8% in 2015-16, a 21% point decrease over the decade.
• According to the most recent National Family Health Survey-5 data, it has decreased by 3.5% points in the last five years, reaching 23.3% in 2020-21.

Global Situation:

• The total number of girls married as children are 12 million per year, and progress must be significantly accelerated if the practice is to be eliminated by 2030, as stated in the Sustainable Development Goals.

Preventive measures are required:

• Without further acceleration, more than 150 million more girls will marry before reaching the age of 18 by 2030.

Improvement, but more work is required:

• While it is encouraging that in the last decade, South Asia's risk of a girl marrying before the age of 18 has dropped by more than a third, from nearly 50% to below 30%, it is not enough, and progress has been uneven.

India's Position:

• The overall prevalence of child marriage is decreasing, but 23.3% is still a concerningly high percentage in a country with a population of 141.2 crore.
• According to NFHS data, eight states have a higher prevalence of child marriage than the national average: West Bengal, Bihar, and Tripura top the list, with more than 40% of women aged 20-24 married before the age of 18.

Indian Territories:

• West Bengal and Bihar have the highest rates of girl child marriage among the larger states.
• Child marriage is more common in states with a large tribal poor population.
• In Jharkhand, 32.2% of women aged 20-24 married before the age of 18, infant mortality was 37.9%, and 65.8% of women aged 15-19 were anaemic.
• Child marriage is also prevalent in Assam (31.8% in 2019-20, up from 30.8% in 2015-16).
• Child marriages have decreased in some states, including Madhya Pradesh (23.1% in 2020-21, down from 32.4% in 2015-16), Rajasthan (25.4%, down from 35.4%), and Haryana.
• Several states are slightly lower than the national average:
• In Odisha, 20.5% of women married before the age of 18 in 2020-21, down from 21.3% in 2015-16.
• States with higher literacy rates and higher health and social indices performed significantly better on this metric.
• Women in Kerala who married before the age of 18 fell to 6.3% in 2019-20, down from 7.6% in 2015-16.
• Tamil Nadu has also improved its figures, with 12.8% of women aged 20 to 24 marrying before the age of 18, compared to 16.3% in 2015-16.

Policies and laws

• The Sarda Act is another name for the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929. It was a law passed to put a stop to the practice of child marriage.
• Its main goal was to eliminate the evils imposed on young girls who were unable to handle the stress of marriage and to prevent premature deaths.
• This act defined a male child as being 21 years of age or younger, and a female child as being 18 years of age or younger.
• The Child Marriage Prohibition Act, 2006: The marriageable age for a male under this act is 21 years, and for a female it is 18 years.
• Child marriage is illegal in India, according to the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act of 2006.
• The Hindu Marriage Act of 1956 makes no specific provisions for punishing the parents or those who performed the marriage ceremony.
• A girl can have her marriage annulled only if she marries before the age of fifteen and challenges the marriage before the age of eighteen.
• Personal Law in Islam: Child marriage is not prohibited by Muslim law. After marriage, the couple has a "option of puberty" known as Khayar-ul-bulugh in which they can repudiate the marriage once they reach puberty.
• The Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses Act,2012 aims to protect children from violations of their human and other rights.
• The Union Cabinet has approved raising the age of marriage for women to 21years. A parliamentary standing committee is weighing the pros and cons.

The Most Common Reasons for Child Marriage

Poverty:

• For a poor family, marrying off one of their daughters means one less mouth to feed and one less child to educate.
• Child marriage may appear to be a safer option for families living in dangerous environments, such as a refugee camp or a war zone.
• Child marriage is deeply ingrained in some cultural traditions, where it is considered a normal and reasonable practise.

Social Insecurity:

• Many people believe that a married woman is far more protected from societal offences than an unmarried woman. Unmarried women are viewed as having malicious intentions, which leads to crimes against them.

Avoiding a Share in Ancestral Property:

• In most rural areas, parents believe that all of their ancestral property belongs to their sons and that if they marry their daughters at a young age, they will lose their share.

Avoiding spending on female education:

• Most families make a distinction between boys and girls. Female children are regarded as a burden because they are not required to work and must perform household chores both before and after marriage.

The Effects of Child Marriage

Child marriage is a violation of human rights and dignity that, unfortunately, is still socially acceptable.

• Harmful effects: It has a significant impact on children's education, health, and safety.
• Reduces Girls' Education Rates: Child marriage is typically the end of a girl's education. She is expected to take care of her husband and start having children once she marries, leaving little time for school or a career.
• Child marriage may appear to be a good financial decision for struggling parents in the short term, but it can actually trap families in a cycle of poverty.
• Contributes to higher fertility rates: Because they have more child-bearing years during their marriage, younger brides are more likely to have larger families. They are also more likely to face greater inequality with their husbands, resulting in the wife having little to no say in when and how many children she has.
• Inability to Plan or Manage Families: Young girls have less influence and control over their children and have less ability to make nutrition, health care, and household management decisions.
• Desire for a Male Child: In order to have a male child, young girls and women are forced to conceive as many times as they can until they give birth to a male child.

Issues

• Child marriage has serious consequences, not only because it violates children's rights, but also because it leads to more infant and maternal deaths.
• Children born to adolescent mothers are more likely to have stunted growth due to their low birth weight. According to NFHS-5, the prevalence of child stunting in 2019-21 is 35.5%.
• Data show that child marriage is a major predictor of high fertility, poor maternal and child health, and lower women's social status.
• Centralised schemes, such as Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, require better ground implementation.

Way Forward

• A multi-pronged strategy is required, including poverty eradication, improved education and public infrastructure for children.
• Raising public awareness of health and nutrition issues, as well as regressive social norms and inequalities.
• Strong laws, rigorous enforcement of laws.
• Creating an ideal situation on the ground to ensure that the girl child — girls with either or less than a primary level of education — has a higher rate of child marriage.
• A girl child receives an education and, preferably, vocational training in order to be financially independent.