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Child marriages in Maharashtra surge by 78.3% amid lockdown as families reel under poverty

ByRupsa Chakraborty
Oct 07, 2020 12:41 AM IST

The Covid-19 pandemic has had an adverse repercussion on the lives of hundreds of teenage girls across Maharashtra. Data from the state’s women and child development (WCD) department has revealed that child marriages in the state have increased by 78.3% until September this year as compared to the same period in 2019.

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Last year, WCD had managed to stop 120 child marriages in the state. This year, the department has rescued 214 teenage girls from marriage.

Experts have attributed the spike to the growing poverty owing to the lockdown imposed to control the spread of the virus, which has forcing girls out of schools and into work or marriage.

“Child marriage is considered as one of the reasons for early pregnancy and malnutrition among children. We have instructed the child protection committees to be more vigilant about such incidences,” said the state WCD secretary IA Kundan.

Activists believe that the numbers are just the tip of the iceberg, as numerous ceremonies have gone unreported owing to the strict lockdown measures, limitations on gatherings and law enforcement bodies such as the police being busy on Covid-19 and lockdown-related duties.

According to the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006, child marriage is illegal in India and the marriage of girls below 18 years and boys below 21 is a punishable offence.

The maximum number of cases has been reported from 17 districts of the state – Beed, Jalna, Aurangabad, Parbhani, Hingoli, Nanded, Ahmednagar, Latur, Buldhana, Dhule, Jalgaon, Nashik, Solapur, Osmanabad, Kolhapur, Sangli and Washim.

In June, the state government imposed a 50-people cap on wedding receptions, which made ceremonies extremely economical for poor farmers. It has been observed that since then, the incidents of child marriage have surged. Until June, there were 76 child marriage cases that were reported, but in the following three months, 138 new incidents were reported.

“Though farmers are poor, they spend most of their savings on marrying off their daughters as per social demands. As it became less expensive [owing to the cap on members who can participate in gatherings], farmers are taking advantage of it,” said Sudhir Tupe from non-governmental organisation (NGO) Lokkalyan Charitable Trust in Satara district. He also works with Childline, a pan-India NGO that works for the welfare of children.

Since June, Tupe’s organisation alone has received more than 50 tip-offs about child marriages.

According to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), almost half of all child brides worldwide live in South Asia, with one in three being from India.

“In India, the median age at first marriage is 19.7 years for women in the richest quintile compared to 15.4 for the poorest women,” states a UNICEF report.

This month, another NGO, Save the Children, published a study which stated Covid-19 would globally put 2.5 million more girls at risk of early marriage by 2025.

Sanjay Sharma, deputy director-programme management (West) of the NGO, said that due to the lockdown, thousands of migrant workers have gone back to their native places. This has given a wide opportunity to the girls’ families to find prospective grooms.

“Due to the fear of spreading the infection, the central government has instructed to close down orphanages. Thus, we had to hand over the girls to their distant relatives who often consider them as unwanted. To shy away from their duties, they are marrying off the girls discreetly,” he said.

Maharashtra has a large number of sugarcane factories where many unemployed migrants look for jobs. But factory owners prefer couples over single individuals.

“This has become one of the reasons for migrant labourers getting married the girls,” said Sharma.

Advocate Varsha Deshpande from the National Commission for Women, who works in Marathwada region, said as migrants have returned, the girls’ fathers are getting them married for their safety and to avoid their daughters falling in love against their wishes.

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