HT Bureau
GUWAHATI, Oct 13: Child marriage is giving the government and bureaucrats sleepless nights alike. However, the solution to curb this social evil seems to be in a book titled ‘When Children Have Children: Tipping Point to End Child Marriage’ by Bhuwan Ribhu.
With lakhs of minor girls being married off, freeing India from the clutches of child marriage feels like a distant dream. This book that could be a game-changer has hit he stands and provides a blueprint on how to make India child marriage free by 2030. The book was unveiled in 20 districts of Assam, as part of the ongoing nationwide Child Marriage Free India campaign.
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The author is a noted child rights activist and one of the most prolific lawyers in the country working for the protection of women and children. He is also the advisor to 160 organizations, which work for the protection of child rights in the country. The book puts forth ideas, a framework, and an action plan to eliminate child marriage from India, and is a key milestone in the Child Marriage Free India campaign, which is led by civil society organizations and women activists in more than 300 high prevalence districts.
The book was released by child marriage survivors and dignitaries from law enforcement agencies and civil society organizations.
India has made strong progress by reducing child marriage by more than 50 per cent since 2006 to the current rate of 23.3 per cent. However, the situation still looks grim and challenging. As per the UNICEF estimates, if the progress continues at the current rate, millions of girls across India in the country will be forced into child marriages until at least 2050.
The book suggests that it is possible to reduce the national child marriage prevalence levels to 5.5 percent by 2030, the threshold beyond which the prevalence is expected to diminish with less reliance on targeted interventions.
“What is needed is the urgency with a resolve to say ‘no more.’ A child sold, raped and lost to maternal death, is a child too many,” stated Ribhu in the book.
According to 2011 census report, 51, 57,863 girls in India and around 2.63 lakh children were married off before turning 18 in Assam. This is a cause of grave concern and requires immediate action to protect young girls from the evil of child marriage. The National Family Health Survey-V (NFHS 2019-21) reports that nationally 23.3 per cent women between the age group of 20-24 were married off before attaining the age of 18. While, Assam reported 31.8 per cent of women in the same age group were married before the age of 18.
“I was only 15, studying in class 10, when I was married off. Within a year, I was grappling with the responsibility of motherhood, started facing health issues due to early pregnancy and was also subjected to domestic violence. It has taken me decades to gather the courage to resume my education and today I am financially independent. I pledge that I won’t let my girls, or any child around me face the atrocities of child marriage,” said Ruchi (name changed), a counsellor with a Haryana based NGO.
Ravi Kant, country head of the Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation said, “Both the civil society as well as the governments have been working aggressively towards the cause of a child marriage free India. We are working on two aspects of behavioural change. The first is awareness generation, the second being the enforcement of existing laws and policies. However, the number of such incidents is still very high and unless we have a strategic and convergent plan to combat this crime, attaining the tipping point of child marriage is a difficult endeavour. This book is the blueprint to make India child marriage free by 2030. This book gives a tangible structure and direction to the immense, but scattered efforts of all the stakeholders from the civil society to the government authorities and law enforcement agencies.”
The book presents a possible blueprint to achieve this through the PICKET strategy, which calls for the government, community, non-profits and girls vulnerable to child marriage work together on policies, investments, convergence, knowledge-building, ecosystem where child marriage does not thrive, technology for monitoring and deterrence to combat child marriage.
The 160 organizations working in more than 300 districts across the country aim to end child marriage at the local and grassroots levels. These organizations are gearing up for a national Child Marriage Free India Day on October 16, when awareness programmes, pledges, street shows, candle-lit marches, workshops and many other activities will be held in thousands of villages to spread the message that child marriage must end.
The day will mark the one-year anniversary of the campaign, during which thousands of child marriages have been prevented through the efforts of community members, NGOs and government agencies. Millions of citizens have pledged to end child marriage in their own communities.
