How is India planning to end child marriage?

Theme : Government Policies & Intervention ; Issues Related to Women

Paper : GS - 1

TABLE OF CONTENT

1. Context
2. Child Marriages across the World
3. Child Marriages in India
4. Laws & Policy Interventions
5. Road Ahead

Context: The visit by the UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage team is in view of an estimated increase in number of child brides due to the pandemic. The UNFPA-UNICEF estimates that 10 million children could become child brides as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic globally.

Child marriage across the world :

• Child Marriage : As per UNICEF, ‘Child marriage’ is the practice of any formal marriage or informal union between a child under the age of 18 and an adult or another child.
• According to data from UNICEF, the total number of girls married in childhood stands at 12 million per year, and progress must be significantly accelerated in order to end the practice by 2030 — the target set out in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
• Without further acceleration, more than 150 million additional girls will marry before they turn 18 by 2030. While it is encouraging that in the past decade great progress has been made in South Asia, where a girl’s risk of marrying before she is 18 has dropped by more than a third, from nearly 50% to below 30%, it is not enough.
• Rights activists and health experts say the consequences of child marriage are dire, not only because it violates children’s rights, but also because it results in more infant and maternal deaths.
• Children born to adolescent mothers have a greater possibility of seeing stunted growth as they have low weight at birth. According to NFHS-5, the prevalence of child stunting is 35.5% in 2019-21.

Child marriages in India:

• In India, child marriage reduced from 47.4% in 2005-06 to 26.8% in 2015-16. In the last five years, it declined by 3.5% points to reach 23.3% in 2020-21, according to the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5 data.
• There is a growing trend for decline in the overall prevalence of child marriage, but 23.3% is still a disturbingly high percentage in a country with a population of 141.2 crore.
• 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 years married below 18, according to NFHS data.
• Rights workers and welfare officials say a lot more needs to be done on factors closely linked to child marriage, including eradication of poverty, better education and public infrastructure facilities for children, raising social awareness on health, nutrition, regressive social norms and inequalities. They stress on an all-pronged approach to end the practice; strong laws, strict enforcement, preparing an ideal situation on the ground to ensure that the girl child — girls with either or below primary level education have experienced higher levels of child marriage as data show — gets an education and preferably vocational training as well so that she can be financially independent.

 Laws and Policy interventions:

1. Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006

• The law seeks to prevent child marriages by making certain actions punishable and by appointing certain authorities responsible for the prevention and prohibition of child marriages.
• The act defines “Child” as below 21 years of age for male, and below 18 years for females.
• “Child marriage” means a marriage to which either of the contracting parties is a child.
• “Minor” means below 18 years of age.
• Child marriage is an offence punishable with rigorous imprisonment, which may extend to 2 years, or with fine up to Rs.1 Lakh, or both. The offenses under the Act are cognisable and non-bailable.

2. Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 

• “Children” according to the Act are individuals aged below 18 years. The Act is gender-neutral. Different forms of sexual abuse including but not limited to sexual harassment, pornography, penetrative & non-penetrative assault are defined in the Act.
• The Act calls for mandatory reporting of sexual offences. A false complaint with intent to defame a person is punishable under the Act.The Act provides for the establishment of Special Courts for the trial of such offences and matters related to it.
• The Act stipulates that such steps must be taken which makes the investigation process as child-friendly as possible and the case is disposed of within one year from the date of reporting of the offence.
• To monitor the implementation of the Act, the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) and State Commissions for the Protection of Child Rights (SCPCRs) have been made the designated authority.
• The Act also provides that in case of inconsistency with provisions of any other law, the POCSO Act shall override such provisions.

3. Beti Bachao Beti Padhao

• It was launched in January 2015 with the aim to address sex selective abortion and the declining child sex ratio.
•  This is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Ministry of Human Resource Development.
• Main Objective : Prevention of gender-biased sex-selective elimination, Ensuring survival & protection of the girl child, Ensuring education and participation of the girl child, Protecting rights of Girl children.

4. Raising the minimum marriage age of girls

• A parliamentary standing committee is weighing the pros and cons of raising the age of marriage for women to 21, which has been cleared by the Union Cabinet.
• States have launched many initiatives to improve the factors linked to child marriage, from education to health care and awareness programmes.
• For instance, 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 a scheme to encourage girls to go back to school.

Road Ahead:

• The solution lies in empowering girls, creating proper public infrastructure and addressing societal norms.
• Government must ensure concerted efforts from down to the gram panchayat level, ensuring that Child Protection Committees and Child Marriage Prohibition officers are doing the job and activating community support groups. Such efforts can lead to Child Marriage Free Villages like in Odisha which now has over 12,000 such villages.
• A series of such interventions — and recommendations of the Shivraj Patil Committee report in 2011 — have helped bring down the percentage of child marriages in Karnataka.
• Increasing the age of marriage without a commensurate improvement in women’s education is least likely to yield better health and nutritional outcomes. Educating women is important for their personal freedom, social well being and contributes to human development.

FAQs : 

1. What is Child Marriage?

Answer : As per UNICEF, ‘Child marriage’ is the practice of any formal marriage or informal union between a child under the age of 18 and an adult or another child.

2. What is Kanyashree Scheme?

Answer : West Bengal’s Kanyashree scheme offers financial aid to girls wanting to pursue higher studies.