E-Paper
Marriage condemns India’s poorest to penury
“Birth. Marriage. Death. In India, these three landmarks are celebrated with zeal,” says Rajneesh Yadav, the India Country Director at Free the Slaves, an anti-trafficking NGO. “When families refuse to perform the rituals associated with each of these events, they are considered social outsiders,” explains Yadav.
There is tremendous social pressure to have extravagant weddings. Low levels of education, poverty, and caste-based discrimination compound these pressures. Nearly 60% of Indians do not have functional bank accounts, making it impossible for them to take loans. As a result, they turn to upper-caste moneylenders and are often unable to repay debts because of high annual interest rates. These creditors then demand physical labour as collateral on loans.
Entrenched in the caste system, debtors don’t question the illegal stipulations of upper-caste creditors. Invariably, they become bonded labourers. Law enforcement is negligent. When cases make their way to court, ineffective prosecution, case backlog, and under-prioritisation lead to traffickers’ acquittals. While both families experience wedding pressures, the bride’s family often bears the brunt of the debt. Despite the 1961 Dowry Prohibition Act, the practice of presenting a dowry persists.
Anti-dowry and anti-bondage policies exist, but the government must improve their implementation. Even though the Ministry of Home Affairs reassessed its strategy for statewide Anti-Human Trafficking Units — programmes that train law enforcement agencies to better identify and investigate slavery — most states don’t have these units.
Certain government programmes are well intentioned but devised without an understanding of on-the-ground realities. For instance, the money-saving programme, Sukanya Samriddhi Account, allows guardians of female children to open bank accounts for their daughters until they turn 10. The major obstacle is that many rural families don’t know how to open bank accounts.
Civil society organisations are slowly making a change. Pragati Gramodyog Sansthan (PGS), Free the Slaves’ local partner in Uttar Pradesh, and a federation of quarry miners devised a way to combat debt bondage: They organised a group wedding. A typical wedding in these areas costs ~50,000. In this case, each family only paid ~1,000.
Such practices provide a sense of hope, but weddings still lead to debt bondage. Prevention methods exist but an inefficient bureaucracy stymies progress. Education is a long-term solution to marriage-related debt. Federal education policies aim to bridge the gender gap and battle social prejudices, but have not led to systemic change.
Short-term solutions to debt bondage are a steps in the right direction. Establish Anti-Human Trafficking Units in all states. Improve the resources of current units. Eradicate corruption within these units and encourage them to penalise all forms of slavery. Increase government transparency regarding the investigation and prosecution of exploitative moneylenders and establish fast-track courts. Create better rehabilitation centres that help slavery survivors re-integrate into society. At the moment, India still has a long way to go.
Malika Noor Mehta is a Master in Public Policy student at the Harvard Kennedy School. This is an abridged version of an article published in Harvard Kennedy School Review. The views expressed are personal.