40% of child marriages in the world happen in India, says CFR’s InfoGuide.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has launched a brand-new online initiative to highlight the problem of child marriage in various parts of the world, particularly in India, which by far features the highest number of child brides at over 10 million.
In fact, according to statistics compiled by CFR for the InfoGuide, a staggering 40% of the child marriages that occur around the entire globe happen in India alone. The country’s child marriage prevalence rate is 47%, even though the legal age for marriage in the country is 18 for women and 21 for men.
The organization issued a press release today announcing what it calls the Child Marriage InfoGuide, which can be found here. In the second paragraph itself, the guide says that the highest percentage of child marriage stem from Western and Central Africa, and South Asia.
In India, the CFR says child marriages are such an epidemic because of the dowry system, which often calls for higher sums of money if the girl getting married off is younger. Cultural and religious norms are also blamed for the problem, as virginity and purity are important tenants in several South Asian cultures.
“Many parents marry their daughters off young to preserve their chastity until marriage, which upholds family honor, and to protect maturing girls from predation,” says the InfoGuide’s profile on India. “In some parts of the country, a shortage of girls also contributes to families betrothing their children at a young age because they believe daughters are at a higher risk of premarital sex. Because early marriage is deeply rooted in many communities across India, enormous social pressures perpetuate the practice.”
Additionally, the CFR says that one out of every three girls in developing countries are married before adulthood (age 18), and that if the trend continues, 142 million such marriages will have taken place by 2020.
“When my parents mentioned marriage [to me], I had no idea what ‘marriage’ even meant,” says Kamla, an Indian girl married off at the age of just 13, who was interviewed by the CFR for its InfoGuide.
The CFR credits the Indian government for doing what it can to prevent child marriages, noting that laws are in place to combat the issue. However, several harsh realities keep the laws from being as forceful as they should be.
“India’s government has made combating child marriage a priority,” says the InfoGuide. “The 2006 Prohibition of Child Marriage Act punishes those who perform or promote such marriages with imprisonment or a fine of up to 100,000 rupees ($1,800). The law also allows for child marriages to be annulled and gives child brides the right to live with their in-laws until they remarry. ”
However, it says, “Enforcement and awareness of these laws, however, remain a challenge. Few cases are brought to court, and in some areas, child marriages take place under the cover of night.”
The CFR concludes the InfoGuide by urging people to lobby with governments and advocate initiatives to combat the problem, saying that it can only do much to highlight the issues, and now it rests in the hands of citizenry to stem the growing tide.
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com