Child Marriage – Violation Behind the Veil of Tradition
Child Marriage is an ancient sinful practice still followed in many countries of the world under the excuses of religion, tradition or poverty. Child marriage affects both the boy and girl child; though the girl child is more disproportionately and gravely affected as they are the majority victims of this practice. A girl child is regarded as a burden on the parent’s shoulders and poor people, especially, portray child marriage as a cause as well as consequence of poverty. They trade their girl child in the name of marriage for money, getting rid of their debt or as a resource for attaining greater wealth. Child marriage is a violation of human rights as it deprives the child bride of her basic rights to equality, education, freedom, development and health. In majority of the situations, getting a girl child married is perceived as a matter of honor, morality for the parents and the society.
A child marriage with consent of the bride or groom is also considered as a forced marriage as it is viewed that any person under the age of 18 is not capable of making well informed decisions regarding marriage. Hence, it is viewed with a context of force and emotional pressure, blackmail, persuasion where children lack the capacity or freedom to make a choice. A child marriage has psychological and social impact on the boy and girl child. But for child brides, it also has a physical and developmental consequence. As the child bride is not physically and sexually mature, she faces severe health risks like maternal complications, mortality and vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. The development of the girl child is obstructed due to lack of education, restricted personal autonomy aggravated with poor health.
Though reformers are constantly making efforts to eradicate child marriage, it is still prevalent in certain parts of the world including Asia especially Southeast Asia. Certain parts of Asia follow the pattern of marrying off the girl as soon as she matures while there are several cases where the girl is married even before she turns 14 or as early as 10 years. Under the category of married adolescents (15 – 19 years) in the survey of World Marriage Patterns 2000 by U.N, the statistics for Asia were as – In Nepal, 14% boys and 42% girls were in this category, while in Afghanistan the percentage was 9% boys and 54% girls and in Bangladesh it was 5% boys and 51% girls. In Nepal, 7% girls were married before they turned 10 years old while this percentage was 5 % in Bangladesh. The cultures across various countries are diverse; hence their marriage patterns are also diverse. Some countries have been successful in raising the age limit for marriage like Sri Lanka where the average of marriage is 25. There have been numerous statistical studies conducted on the consequences of child marriage. A survey conducted on young married women for an article in New York Times showed that 63% of their children under the age of 4 were malnourished. DHS Survey made in November 2000 showed that the situation in Bangladesh is that a girl will be withdrawn from school if a good marriage prospect comes for her. This situation is also present in other Asian countries like Indonesia, Kazakhstan and Nepal.
There have been various programs and policies taken up at various levels to create awareness and eradicate child marriage from the society. Researches show that state of Kerala in India and in Sri Lanka has a high age of first marriage than other Asian countries. Another striking similarity between both of them is that they have a higher rate of education and it has been instrumental in changing the way men and women perceive their roles, rights and potential. As poverty is seen as a major cause of restraining girl child from education and early marriage, Bangladesh introduced a secondary school scholarship program for girls in early 1990s. Under this program, free books and fees were provided for girl students and their parents were also compensated for the loss of their household or agricultural work of their daughter. In India, the government of Rajasthan, Haryana and Karnataka established economic incentive programs to promote child education and save girl child.
International organizations, NGOs and governments are supporting various programs to regulate the marriageable age for children. Marriage is a sensitive and private matter thus many child marriage cases go unreported. Hence to remove this evil from the core, a combined effort of the civil society and government is necessary.
