Child marriage : A disgiuse to society

                          CHILD MARRIAGE   

INTRODUCTION

Child marriage refers to any formal marriage or informal union between a child under the age of 18 and an adult or another child.

While the prevalence of child marriage has decreased worldwide – from one in four girls married a decade ago to approximately one in five today – the practice remains widespread. 

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 100 million girls were expected to marry before their eighteenth birthday in the next decade. Now, up to 10 million more girls will be at risk of becoming child brides as a result of the pandemic.

EFFECTS ON EACH GENDER

Child marriage has lasting consequences on girls, from their health (mental and physical), education and social development perspectives. These consequences last well beyond adolescence.One of the most common causes of death for girls aged 15 to 19 in developing countries was pregnancy and childbirth. In Niger, which is estimated to have the highest rate of child marriage in the world, about 3 in 4 girls marry before their 18th birthday.

Boys are sometimes married as children, almost always to a female minor. UNICEF states that "girls [are] disproportionately affected by the practice. Globally, the prevalence of child marriage among boys is just one-sixth that among girls. Research on the effects of child marriage on underage boys is scant, which researchers state is likely because child marriage involving boys is less common and boys do not face the adverse health effects as a result of early pregnancy and childbirth.The effects of child marriage on boys include being ill-prepared for certain responsibilities such as providing for the family, early fatherhood, and a lack of access to education and career opportunities.As of September 2014, 156 million living men were married as underage boys.

In its first in-depth analysis of child grooms, UNICEF revealed that an estimated 115 million boys and men around the world were married as children. Of these, 1 in 5, or 23 million, boys were married before the age of 15. According to the data, the Central African Republic has the highest prevalence of child marriage among males (28%), followed by Nicaragua (19%) and Madagascar (13%). The estimates bring the total number of child brides and child grooms to 765 million. Girls remain disproportionately affected, with 1 in 5 young women aged 20 to 24 years old married before their 18th birthday, compared to 1 in 30 young men.

CAUSES

According to UNFPA, factors that promote and reinforce child marriage include poverty and economic survival strategies; gender inequality; sealing land or property deals or settling disputes; control over sexuality and protecting family honor; tradition and culture; and insecurity, particularly during war, famine or epidemics. Other factors include family ties in which marriage is a means of consolidating powerful relations between families.

CONSEQUENCES

Early Pregnancy-Health complications

Child marriages usually lead to an early pregnancy which results in many health complications. Without having the proper knowledge about the sexual activities and bodily changes which occur during puberty she cannot cope with changes in her during pregnancy. Today even elderly women too are not in the position to guide her properly. In the olden days elderly women used to monitor the situation perfectly during pregnancy, during delivery and during post-delivery. But nowadays elderly women neither have knowledge as did women in olden days nor have the positive attitude to approach proper medical people.

Fall in High Fertility Age Group

When a girl is married at an early age, she normally tends to have more children and unwanted pregnancy. Lack of access to modern medical facilities to avoid or postpone pregnancy, women are forced to have pregnancy and carry the child.

Inabilities to Plan or Manage Families

Young girls exercise less influence and control over their children and have less ability to make decisions about their nutrition, health care and household management.

Effect on sexual health of young girls

Young girls use to face considerable physical pain associated with sexual intercourse as a result of the physiological immaturity of their sexual organs. Complications due to pregnancy at a young age frequently include perforation of the bladder or bowel, due to prolonged labor and HIV AIDS etc.

Desire for Male Child

Due to desire for a male child, young girls and women are forced to conceive as many times as she can till she gives birth to a male child.

High difference in age between bride and bridegroom

Generally there is a lot of age difference between the bride and the bride groom. In most of the child marriages it is the bride who is a child and not the bride groom. When the bride is child she naturally does not have any freedom to express her opinions on any of family life and she has to blindly obey the orders of her husband.

Government’s Initiatives

The Government of India took major steps to eradicate the evil of child marriage in the Indian societies. The Child Marriage Restraint Act was passed in 1929. Its objective is to eliminate this evil of child marriage which had the potentialities of dangers to the life and health of a female child, who could not cope the stress and the strains of a married life and to avoid the early deaths of such minor mothers. It defines such terms:

“Child” means a person who, if a male, is under twenty one years of age, and if a female, is under eighteen years of age.

“Child Marriage” means a marriage to which either the contracting parties is a child.

“Contracting party” to a marriage means either of the parties whose marriage is or is about to be thereby solemnized.

“Minor” means a person of either sex who is under eighteen years of age.

Whoever performs conducts or directs any child marriage shall be punished with simple imprisonment which may extend to three months and shall also be liable to fine, unless he proves that he has reasons to believe that the marriage was not a child marriage.

Consummation of “Gauna” is not considered to be a part of marriage ceremony. The marriage being complete before the consummation, a person may be convicted under this act, though consummation has not taken place.

Suggestions

There are certain suggestions which can be adopted in order to lessen child marriages:

• Develop strong support systems to keep girls in school. Provide scholarships where necessary and encourage teachers to support girls.
• Strengthen and establish community networks and partnerships involving girls clubs, teachers, elders, local government officials, women and youth groups, community and religious leaders, etc. that jointly work towards ending early marriage.
• Strengthen the role of the judicial system particularly the police, judges, and persecutors through training on enforcement of the law against early marriage.
• Efforts should be made to give-up the factors motivating child marriages, all efforts should aim at changing the gender biased attitudes of parents and society by imparting proper education on one hand and eradicating poverty on the other.

Conclusion

Child Marriages are considered as one of the social menace that cannot be curbed easily without the support of the society. There have been demands to make child marriages void ab initio under the Prohibition of Child Marriages Act since a long time, but Indian society is complicated and complex and making child marriages void will only jeopardize the rights of women who are the victims of child marriage. Many a times the parents of the girl child forcibly marries their daughters to some elder man so that that person can give some money to the girl’s family and from that money their financial condition can turn better.

Also from the above discussion, it can be concluded that in early marriages, the girl child’s reproductive and sexual health is affected the most. The child brides suffer from high rates of obstetric complications, pregnancy induced hypertension, higher mortality rates, premature delivery, high incidence of miscarriages and stillbirths. The risks of early marriage are not just limited to the girl child alone, but also to the child that is born out of that marriage as a result of an early pregnancy. The infant mortality rates are also high along with incidences of premature delivery and low birth weight of the newborn child.

There is tremendous pressure on young wives to bear a child. Early sexual activities also expose adolescents to a greater risk of contracting Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) including HIV AIDS. Early marriage and pregnancy is one of the major cases of maternal mortality in India.

Mere legislation will not serve the purpose unless there is support and backing from the society. Uniform Civil Code would also help in preventing child marriages to some extent.