Basanti Rani, a 33-year-old farmers’ wife from the northern Indian state of Haryana, recently withdrew her 15-year-old daughter Paru from school in order to marry her off to a 40-year-old man.
“In an increasingly insecure social milieu, where rape and sexual abuse have become so common, marrying off my daughter was a wise move,” she told IPS.
“Who would’ve married her had she been abused or raped? Now, at least, her husband can look after her.”
Such a mindset, widespread across this country of 1.2 billion people, is just one of the reasons why India hosts one out of every three child brides in the world.
A recent United Nations report entitled ‘Ending Child Marriage – Progress and Prospects’ found that, despite the existence of a stringent anti-child marriage law, India ranks sixth among countries with the highest prevalence of child marriages across the globe.
The U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) defines child marriage as unions occurring before a person is 18 years of age, and calls the practice a “violation of human rights.”
In India, 27 percent of women aged 20-49 claim to have tied the knot before turning 15, the survey states.
Canada now is leading the charge, calling on governments to stop child marriages, despite misgivings from some countries and last week presented a resolution in the United Nations urging all states to enact laws to prevent and end forced marriages for girls, and links child marriages to development and poverty.
The United Nations adopted the resolution, the first of its kind. The measure was adopted by consensus in the General Assembly committee and is now set to go to the full Assembly next month.
About 15 million girls worldwide become child brides each year and globally, more than 700 million women were married before the age of 18.
Unless action is taken, some 1.2 billion girls will be married by 2050, says the Girls Not Brides coalition of non-governmental organisations.
Niger, Bangladesh and India have high rates of child marriages, but Zara Rapoport from the child rights group Plan said forced marriages are also prevalent in immigrant communities in developed countries.
India has the highest number of child brides in the world, although the incidence has been decreasing. Less girls are marrying before the age of 15 (from 23.5% to 18.2%), but rates of marriage have increased for girls between ages 15-18 (26.7% to 29.2%)[i].
Major factors perpetuating child marriage are economic considerations (poverty, marriage-related expenses, dowry), gender norms and expectations, concerns about girls’ safety and family honour, and a lack of educational opportunities for girls.
“The problem persists largely because of the patriarchal vision that perceives marriage and childbearing as the ultimate goals of a girl’s life,” explains Sonvi A. Khanna, advisory research associate for Dasra, a philanthropic organisation that works with UNICEF.
The increasing rates of violence against girls in both rural and urban India, adds Khanna, are instilling fear in the minds of families, leading them to marry their girls off as soon as they reach puberty.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)’s July 2014 records, there were 309,546 crimes against women reported to the police last year against 244,270 in 2012.
Crimes included rape, kidnapping, sexual harassment, trafficking, molestation, and cruelty by husbands and relatives. They also included incidents in which women were driven to suicide as a result of demands for dowries from their husbands or in-laws.
The NCRB said the number of rapes in the country rose by 35.2 percent to 33,707 in 2013 – with Delhi reporting 1,441 rapes in 2013 alone, making it the city with the highest number of rapes and confirming its reputation as India’s “rape capital”.
Mumbai, known for being more women-friendly, recorded 391 rapes last year, while IT hub Bangalore registered 80 rapes.
The law, experts say, can do little to change mindsets or provide alternatives to child marriage.
A report by Dasra entitled ‘Marry Me Later: Preventing Child Marriage and Early Pregnancy in India’ states that the practice “continues to be immersed in a vicious cycle of poverty, low educational attainment, high incidences of disease, poor sex ratios, the subordination of women, and most significantly the inter-generational cycles of all of these.”
According to the report, despite the fact that child marriage as a practice “directly hinders the achievement of six of eight Millennium Development Goals, as an issue, it remains grossly under-funded.”
The 2006 Prohibition of Child Marriage Act (PCMA) in India seeks to prevent and prohibit the marriage of girls under 18, and boys under 21 years of age.
It states that if an adult male aged 18 and above is wed to a minor he shall be “punishable with rigorous imprisonment for two years or with [a] fine, which may extend to […] one lakh” (about 2,000 dollars).
Furthermore, if “a person performs, conducts, directs or abets any child marriage”, that person too shall face a similar punishment and fine.
Experts term PCMA a fairly progressive law compared to its predecessors, one with the rights of the child at its core.
It even allows for annulment of a child marriage if either party applies for it within two years of becoming adults. Even after annulment of the marriage, the law provides for residence and maintenance of the girl by her husband or in-laws until she re-marries.
“Any children born of the marriage are deemed legal and their custody is provided for, keeping the child’s best interests in mind, states this law,” a Delhi-based High Court advocate told IPS.
Yet, the legislation has not been adequately enforced due to its heavy reliance on community reporting, which rarely happens.
“Since reporting a child marriage could mean imprisonment and stigma for the family, immense financial loss and unknown repercussions for the girl, few come forward to report the event,” Khanna said.
“Adding to the problem is corruption among the implementers, or the police, who are insensitive to the need [to] stop child marriages.”
Small wonder, then, that convictions under PCMA have been few and far between.
According to the NCRB, only 222 cases were registered under the Act during the year 2013, compared to 169 in 2012 and 113 in 2011. Out of these, only 40 persons were convicted in 2012, while in 2011, action was taken against 76 people.
Activists point out that the main bottlenecks they encounter in their fieldwork are economic impoverishment, social customs, lack of awareness about consequences of child marriage and the belief that marriage offers social and financial security to the girl.
Many parents also believe that co-habitation with a husband will protect a young girl from rape and sexual activity.
“Nothing could be further from [the] truth,” explains Meena Sahi, a volunteer with Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement), a non-profit organisation working in the field of child welfare.