Our children are not for sale – Firstpost

Even after 77 years of independence, India is yet to become free from child marriage, resulting in child rape, pregnancy, and deaths eventually. According to the World Health Organisation, complications due to pregnancy and childbirth are the second biggest cause of death for women in the age range of 15–19 years globally. Adolescent mothers face higher risks of eclampsia, puerperal endometritis, and systemic infections as compared to women in the age group of 20–24 years.

As per several scholarly articles, pregnancy and childbirth complications are among the leading causes of death of girls in India aged between 15 and 19 years of age. Even conservative estimates suggest 3–10 girls in India below the age of 18 are married off every minute.

Lack of proper mechanisms and legal awareness results in the overlooking of the sexual abuse of girls particularly in the age group of 12–18 years of age.

As per UNICEF, as of 2023, India has made remarkable progress towards ending child marriage, though it remains home to the largest number of child brides worldwide. One in three of the world’s child brides live in India. Over half of the girls and women in India who married in childhood live in five states: Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh is home to the largest number. Nearly 23 per cent of young women in India were married or went into union before their 18th birthday. At least 40 per cent of young women were married before turning 18 in West Bengal, Bihar, and Tripura.

Financial conditions and family background gravely affect child marriages—girls living in rural areas or coming from poorer households are at greater risk, and a higher proportion of child brides are found among those with little or no education—cases of children being sold off in the name of marriage are also prevalent. Such cases also deny the opportunity for these girls to self-develop themselves and mar their means to earn a respectable livelihood, if required someday, caging them into the bond of lifelong slavery. Fewer than two out of 10 married girls remain in school.

Goal 5 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) demands the end of child marriages by 2030, but as per the UNICEF 2023 report, if current trends continue, it will take the world more than 300 years to end child marriages. Also, child marriages affect the achievement of at least 9 of the 17 SDGs.

Now, as PM Narendra Modi in his 11th Independence Day speech calls for a secular Uniform Civil Code free from the discrimination on the basis of religion, it is the time India should have taken an all-out war against the menace of child marriage across the religions and the sects.

In this regard, Bhuwan Ribhu’s book — When Children Have Children — deserves a special mention for bringing attention towards this silent tragedy that hardly catches our eyes but yet seeps beneath our feet. His experience as a child-right activist and the founder of Save the Childhood Foundation, India Child Protection (formerly India Child Protection Fund), Child Marriage Free India, and Just Rights for Children Alliance has allowed him to have a comprehensive outlook upon one of the greatest issues that affects our future. Here is a short interview of his with Firstpost.

Excerpts:

The very title of your book is very hard hitting, but even more are the staggering facts. There is a great deal of sentimentalism in this read. To find a girl having her child on her back with least support for the survival of either of them would have been a tough sight for anyone. It would at times have been tough for you as well to manage your emotions; what were your reactions?

Bhuwan Ribhu: When I first saw this child carrying another child, I was transfixed for a moment, having feelings of despair, love, and hope at the same time.

As I clicked her picture, she continued to walk. While she disappeared out of my sight, she did not leave my mind, as dozens of children have not. These girls and children are not just photos, case studies, or numbers. They are real lives with dreams and aspirations. For us, she may be just another child in the world. But for a child like her, what we choose to do may define and decide her entire world.

I could not do anything to assist that child that day, but I worked to ensure education for the children of Nepal. And it was just coincidence that a few years later, as I was marching through Nepal demanding the Fundamental Right to Education, I happened to take a few photos of a happy and boisterous bunch of children who had joined the march.

A month later, while going through the photos I had taken during the march, I recognised a familiar face with a smile and twinkle in her eyes and a school bag on her shoulders. She was the same child who was now in school.

I cannot say that it is easy, but the emotions that we feel when we look at these children have to translate into actions to assist them.

The UN estimates that at least 12 million girls are married every year before they turn 18, with a third being from India. Still, this is a silent storm that is hardly heard; what’s your take on it?

Ribhu: The exploitation of children, especially in the form of marriage, has become so prevalent that society has somewhat become desensitised or has turned a blind eye to this crime.

Most people are still astonished when they hear these numbers or stories of these children. While every minute, three girls are married off in India, merely three child marriage cases were registered across the nation, daily, in 2022, as per the National Crime Records Bureau data.

People continue to live in the ‘not me, not here, not now, not possible’ mindset.

The cultural and religious acceptability of child rape in the form of marriage is a shame on society, and somewhere it also shows the discrimination, disempowerment, and patriarchal mindset that our children are faced with.

Another factor contributing to the silence around child marriage is that in the absence of prosecution, people do not believe or accept child marriage as a crime.

But moves such as the crackdown on child marriage by the Assam government are appreciable.

Despite the government’s efforts to boost the female enrolment ratio and ensure gender parity in nourishment and opportunities, do you think we somehow lag behind in developing a comprehensive strategy to counter childhood marriage and protect, particularly, girl children from the devastating fallouts of it? Is there more need for the government to collaborate?

Ribhu: The world is gradually waking up to the scourge of child marriage.

While India is leading the world in mass mobilisation and also in prosecutions, we must bolster our laws further.

The attempt to marry a child should become a punishable offence. Trafficking for the purpose of marriage should be identified and included in the law as a separate offence under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

Along with the strengthening of laws, we need political and societal will to eradicate this social evil and crime.

If the government makes education free for all till 18 years, it will encourage parents to continue the schooling of girl children. Many families are compelled to discontinue the education of their daughters because they are unable to afford the school fee. A recent report by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in collaboration with WHO made a strong economic case for investment in the well-being of adolescents in India. The return on investment in areas such as adolescent health, education, and child marriage prevention is 1:33, according to this report.

Multiple court decisions saying that personal laws allow child marriage have created a state of confusion regarding the implementation of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 (PCMA). A clear direction has to come from the Supreme Court of India stating that prosecution under PCMA is irrespective of religion or faith.

Child welfare and protection committees at Gram Panchayat, block, and district levels can be activated to monitor the effective implementation of PCMA.

Compulsory registration of all births and age verification at the time of marriage will prove helpful in curtailing the rate of child marriage.

Do you think child marriage is just a diluted paraphrasing of mental and sexual exploitation of the child and, as such, misses our strictest attention?

Ribhu: Children are not voters. They are dependent on adults for their well-being. It is more of our responsibility. Unfortunately, not enough attention is being given to child marriage because the perceptions and beliefs of adults are determining the future of these children.

At present, these beliefs and ideas result in children’s mental and sexual exploitation.

The celebration of a child marriage is an unfortunate celebration of an impending rape of a child. Further, the child is too young to realise the seriousness of the situation and how it is going to shape her future. By the time she is an adolescent, she is a mother, and when she understands how different her life is from that of her peers, it is too late. Worse, she has no support. This is why post-partum depression, suicidal thoughts, guilt, and loneliness are found as long-term consequences of adolescent pregnancies.

Apart from mental abuse, the child also undergoes sexual abuse in marriage. The Supreme Court of India has ruled that sexual intercourse with a minor, even if done within marriage, is tantamount to rape. This is why in many child marriage cases, the perpetrator is arrested under both PCMA and the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO).

This is precisely why India needs a policy against child marriage and a budgeted National Action Plan to implement the same.

Your organisation, Child Marriage Free India, advocates child rights, which are closely linked to the economic status of the Indian families marrying off their kids early, either to have their burden of expenditure less or simply selling them off. How do you see India as a society addressing this issue?

Ribhu: The society, represented by the state, needs to declare in one voice that our children are not for sale, and to ensure an India free from child marriage, which would, in turn, be a tipping point to create a child marriage-free world (India is home to one-third of the world’s child marriages).

We also need behaviour change at scale. This may be achieved through awareness amongst parents brought about by our political leaders, cultural leaders, icons, and faith leaders, and also through the introduction of positive masculinity, laws, and child rights in the education curriculum.

Mandatory reporting of child marriages by panchayats will further help in the reduction of child marriages.

We ought to promote pledges against child marriage. A pledge is a promise by a person. Even if one among 100 people keeps to this promise, at least one child will be saved.

I can’t emphasise more the importance of prosecution here. Legal deterrent, especially in the ecosystem that promotes child marriage, is a must to combat this crime. Everyone directly or indirectly involved in solemnising a child marriage should be prosecuted. This includes pandit, maulana, priest, caterer, guests, transporter, and wedding card designers.

In fact, a recent report by the India Child Protection research team conclusively established that there has been an 81 per cent reduction in child marriages in 21 districts of Assam where prosecutions were done. A staggering 99 per cent of respondents in the survey believed that prosecutions also contributed to increased awareness on child marriage.

It is crucial for the government, corporate bodies, and civil society actors to collaborate to find solutions to fight child marriage.

Children’s participation in village-level child protection committees should be enhanced to increase reporting and provide avenues for children to seek assistance.

There ought to be mandatory reporting of child marriage cases at par with the crime of child sexual abuse.

Lastly, please share about the idea behind conceptualising the PICKET strategy and how you think it is now the tipping point towards the end of child marriage.

Ribhu: I believe that there is no point in continuing to talk about the problem without looking to address and solve it at scale.

By looking at the government data, we analysed that only 257 districts account for over 23 per cent rate of child marriage (the national average of prevalence of child marriage in India). A total of 330 districts account for a rate of over 20 per cent of child marriage. By focussing all our strategies on these districts and ending child marriage in these districts, we can aim to reach the tipping point of less than six per cent prevalence rate in India. This would, in turn, have a cascading effect to end the impunity around child marriages across the nation.

The PICKET strategy is a guide to reach this tipping point. The strategy requires that the governments, communities, civil society organisations, and adolescent girls vulnerable to child marriage work together on Policy, Investment, Convergence, Knowledge, Ecosystem and Technology.

The PICKET strategy begins with the formulation and implementation of comprehensive policies for child protection that act as the pathway to justice for children. On one hand, policies should prevent child marriages. On the other hand, they should result in stern prosecution of perpetrators who were found involved in solemnising child marriages.

The way court injunctions are used in Udaipur (Rajasthan) to prevent child marriages is an ideal example of making use of a provision existing in the law.

These policies have to be supplemented with adequate investment at all levels. This includes creating and building capacity of institutions, investment in infrastructure facilities, and incentivisation. The recent announcement by the Assam government to provide financial assistance to girl students pursuing higher secondary and postgraduate degrees in government-run and aided institutions may prove instrumental in combating child marriage.

The judiciary, police, enforcement agencies, and civil society have to converge to develop a child-centric community. It is a bottom-up approach. At-risk children should be constantly involved over extended periods of time in devising strategies to fight this menace because a lot of answers will come from them.

If all the stakeholders are armed with the correct knowledge and aptitude to fight child marriage, we will surely see positive results.

An ecosystem-level retaliation is required to change the societal perception, behaviour, and acceptance towards child marriage. In other words, multi-pronged intervention to create a society where child marriage does not thrive.

Lastly, we can make optimum use of technology to extend support to girls at-risk of or affected by child marriage. For example, the Tamil Nadu government uses technology to monitor the attendance of school students. In many cases, it was discovered that the girl child stopped schooling as her marriage was scheduled.

Therefore, the PICKET strategy is a blueprint to prioritise the end of child marriage, one of the gravest socially accepted crimes and depravities in the modern world.

The views expressed above do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.