Wedding, a child’s play

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Hyderabad: There was high drama in the constituency of deputy chief minister Damodar Raja Narsimha in Medak district last week when an 11-year-old girl was about to be married off to a 14-year-old boy in Yellipeta village.
The combined efforts of local officials, police and child protection officers was able to stop the marriage. But this was just one of many similar cases that occur year after year despite child marriage being unlawful, and sadly, they are not always stopped.
According to UNICEF and the state government, the percentage of girls and boys getting married below the ages of 18 and 21 years respectively in the state is above 50 per cent, while the all-India average is 47 per cent.
More girls than boys are underage when they are married. The reasons are social, economic and traditional. In Andhra Pradesh a major reason for early marriages is parents fearing that their children will elope or that an outsider from another state will take the girl away.
There is also the fear on the part of the parents of sexual violence; the parents of the girl feel that she will be better protected when she is married. Neither of these is reasonable, given the high incidence of marital violence. 
Poverty pushes many parents into marrying off their daughters early and there is also the fact that dowry-another illegal practice that is only too common-will increase with the age of the bride.What parents don’t consider is that early marriage takes its toll on the mind and body of the girl.
A 16-year-old girl is not able to understand the responsibilities of marriage, nor should she be expected to. An early marriage cuts off her education and the time to acquire the skills that would help her in life. It pushes girls into a regressive mode rather than a developmental mode as the mind stops accepting new things in life and is set into a routine.
Depriving a girl of an education ensures that she is always under the control of her elders or her husband and is totally dependent on them, unable to take independent decisions.
The impact on the health of a young girl is often disastrous. She is still physically and underdeveloped and often anaemic and will not be able to bear a healthy child. Low-weight babies are common in such situations.
The law forbids such marriages but it needs to be buttressed by counselling of parents and creating awareness about the evils of such marriages, besides, the punishment under the law for those who break it. Of all the South Indian states, Andhra Pradesh is ranked lowest in literacy.
Next: Ill health, poverty push families into marriages

Ill health, poverty push families into marriages
Hyderabad: A vicious cycle of malnourishment, maternal mortality, infant mortality and poverty tends to push the adolescent girl child into a mode of regression. This is one of the major reasons for low-weight babies, such babies ranking the highest in the state at 37 per cent. Due to this,  infant mortality rate is as high as 49 per 1000 and maternal mortality rate as high as 53 per cent.
One of the major reasons for the illhealth of the girl child is malnourishment due to  hormonal changes in the body after 11 years of age. Paediatrician Dr S.  Ramakrishna explained, “The girl child requires adequate nutrition after 11 years of age due to hormonal changes in her body. But parents are not aware, nor is it their priority.” Due to this, the number of anaemic girls in Andhra Pradesh is on the higher side. 
The incidence has increased from 49.8 per cent to 62.7 per cent, according to statistics of the women and child welfare department. A state government official said, “Due to this reason our maternal mortality incidence show a lot of women dying of bleeding during childbirth. Efforts to explain these factors to the family becomes very difficult at the time of the incident. Families fail to understand that an underdeveloped body cannot handle the burden of a child.”

A file photo shows police officials and social workers intervening and rescuing a young girl from getting married at an early age.
Mandals in all districts of state have 91,000 prohibition officers who carry out the job creating awareness about child marriages. Another reason that has come to fore is trafficking and officers have been seeking the help of police and revenue officers to stop this practice.
Principal secretary Neelam Sawhney of the women and child welfare department said, “The effective way to curb the existing problem is to work with community workers and self help groups who can help parents when they are faced with a challenge. We are trying to make local mandal and village heads responsible for the safety of their girls and hope that this will slowly bring about the much required change.”
Next: Illiteracy leads to child marriages

Illiteracy leads to child marriages
Hyderabad: Education and awareness are main factors changing the game in the case of child marriages. Education implies not just the education of the girl child who is getting married, but also the education and awareness of her parents and the sarpanch of the village.
In most child marriages, the girl is not likely to have attended school, and after marriage into another family and starting household work, she will certainly not have the opportunity to study later on in life.
Thus, she does not receive the free and compulsory education until the age of 14 that she is entitled to under the Right to Education Act. She also has to face biological problems and sometimes, her much older husband dies early, say some Child Development Officers.
The sarpanch’s role is also important in stopping child marriages, as s/he is the first official to get information about child marriages in their respective villages. In many cases, sarpanches themselves do not take any action to stop the marriage because they do not find anything wrong with it in their moral tradition.
Child marriages are rampant in districts of Kurnool, Nalgonda, Mehbubnagar, Warangal and Srikakulam. UNICEF and other organisations conduct intervention programs in these districts. Incidentally, some pockets of these districts also have low literacy rates.
A village in Halaharvi mandal of Kurnool district has been able to record almost zero cases of child marriages in the last few years, while child marriages have been rampant in the adjacent mandals such as Emmiganuru. Village heads say that high literacy levels and economic development have helped them achieve this.