Child Marriage in India
Child Marriage:
- The union of a boy or girl before they reach adulthood is referred to as “child marriage” (18 years).
Why Do Children Get Married at a Young Age?
- It is a social custom that is regularly followed.
- parents who are both illiterate and impoverished.
- the family’s social and financial condition, as well as the community’s and family’s cultural values.
- lack of easy access to education and ignorance of its negative implications
- Because child marriage is a widely recognised practise, politicians find it challenging to criticise it for fear of alienating voters and supporters.
- According to multiple accounts, it is a common practise to traffic girls from tribal and low-income areas for the sex trade or to use them as cheap labour through underage marriage.
- It occurs more frequently in rural areas.
- The Central and Western regions of India have the greatest rates of child marriage, while the Eastern and Southern regions have the lowest rates.
An outcome of a child marriage is:
- It limits people’s access to education and future prospects.
- It prevents socioeconomic and gender inequity and restricts decision-making flexibility.
- It is linked to several health problems, as well as a lack of access to, knowledge about, and application of reproductive health treatments and information.
“Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill 2021:
- 23% of women between the ages of 20 and 24 who were married before turning 18 years old are still married, according to the National Family Health Survey 2019–21. (NFHS–5).
- The Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929 was the first piece of legislation to outlaw child marriage in India.
- The 1929 Act forbade marriage for minors under the age of 18.
- The minimum age was raised in this Act’s 1978 modification to 18 for girls and 21 for males.
- With the same minimum age restrictions, the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act of 2006 replaced the Act of 1929.
- If passed into law, the Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, 2021 will raise the drinking age for women to 21.
- On December 21, 2021, the Bill was delivered to the Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth, and Sports.
- The 2006 Prohibition of Child Marriage Act is modified by the proposed legislation.
Relevance of the legislation:
- Raising the legal consent age for women to 21 will ensure gender equality since lower marriage ages encourage the idea that wives must be younger than their husbands.
- The Bill raises the legal age of marriage for females from 18 to 21. This suggests that everyone who got married between the ages of 18 and 21 is likewise qualified to ask to have their marriage nullified.
