Social scourge: On India and child marriages

India has committed to end child marriage by 2030 through the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), and while it has made comprehensive strides, there are still miles to go to achieve the target. The Union government recently marked the first anniversary of its Bal Vivah Mukt Bharat Abhiyan with a 100-day awareness campaign for a country free of child marriage. It is a fact that child marriages have been consistently dropping, from 47.4% in 2005-06 to 23.3% in 2019-21, according to National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data. But in a diverse country of a population of 146 crore, the ground reality is that progress is varied and uneven across States and socio-economic demographics. While the highest child marriage rates among women aged 18 to 29 years are prevalent in West Bengal, Bihar and Tripura, States such as Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are not far behind. There is a direct co-relation between child marriage, poverty and education, as the UN Population Fund’s analysis of NFHS data shows. While 40% of girls from the lowest quintile of the household wealth index married before they became adults, in comparison to just 8% of those from the highest quintile, 48% of girls with no education were married below 18 years in comparison to only 4% among those with higher education.

The Prevention of Child Marriage Act, 2006, is the flagship law to end the practice, but figures from National Crime Bureau Records indicate infrequent application of the law and a low conviction rate. Also, the use of laws such as the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, which are stringent and provide no leeway for consenting sexual adolescents, has led to other concerns. Afraid of triggering harsh punishments from the criminal justice system, many underage girls are turning to unregistered, unprofessional help, endangering their health further. Already, it is established that child marriages can lead to poor maternal and child health. In this backdrop, it is imperative to study why States such as West Bengal, which incentivises girls to study with a cash scheme, still has a high incidence of child marriage. The Centre’s ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ campaign has to do much more to reach the most vulnerable communities, and ensure that infrastructure, including clean toilets and safe public transport, are in place to keep girls at school. According to Girls Not Brides, a global partnership, at least nine of the 17 SDGs will not be achieved without ending child marriage. In India, unless the several factors driving child marriage — poverty, and education, health and gender inequality — are addressed, it will be impossible to bridge the gap between policy and practice.