By Our Special Correspondent
Munbai, July 18 (IVC) Every minute three girl children were forced into marriage in India, a recent study by ‘India Child Protection ‘ research team which is part of ‘Child Marriage Free India ’ network of civil society organizations revealed here. It is not that you will know this from crime data, which captures a fraction of child marriages in the country. Take 2022 for example. Only three cases were registered per day at national level. It becomes grimmer in most cases, the girl child was married off to a man over 21 years, the report said.
The report analyzed data from the Census 2011, National Crime Records Bureau(NCRB) and National Family Health Survey(NFHS)-5. As per the report, NCRB data for the 2018-2022 period recorded 3,863 child marriages. But aas the study pointed out, extrapoating from Census 2011 estimates , more than 16lakh child marriages take place every year. That translates into over 4000 child marriages every day. NFHS-5 estimates show that 23.3 per cent of women in the 20-24 age group women were married off before they were 18 years of age.
Assam is cited as a case study in curbing chilf marriage. In between 2021-22 and 2023-24 there was an 81 per cent drop in child marriages across 1,132 villages in 20 districts of the State, the report said. In absolute numbers, the decline is from 3,225 cases in 2021-22 to 627 in 2023-24. Last year, there were over 3000 arrests for this crime. In a survey carried out in these villages , 98 per cent of respondents believed that the state’s strict law enforcement was the major reason for the decline in child marriages, the report added.
