Fear Of Girls Getting Into Love Affair, Becoming Pregnant Is Driving Child Marriages: Study
Three of every five child brides go through teenage pregnancy and only a fraction of parents who enable such marriages are aware of its negative impacts.
This revelation was made after the NGO Child Rights and You (CRY) published a survey recently. Thus, providing a much-needed update on child marriages in India.
The report also emphasised the issue of underage marriage and its impact, stating that it has a detrimental effect on girls' sexual and reproductive health (SRH). Many of these girls become mothers even before attaining adulthood.
The study was organised during Child Safety Week (November 14 to 20). It covered 40 villages of eight blocks from four districts, namely Chittoor, Chandouli, Parbhani, and Kandhamal, in Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha.
Parents unaware of its?consequences
A significant finding in the report suggests that only 16 per cent of parents and parents-in-law and 34 per cent of child brides or grooms know about the consequences of child marriage.
Apart from social norms that sway perception around underage marriage, the report points to extreme poverty, forced migration and gender inequity as reasons behind the prevalence of this archaic tradition.
Moreover, the lack of education among girls keeps them out of school, leaving them far more vulnerable to child marriage than boys.
The study further claimed that fear of girls eloping or having a "love affair", which might lead to premarital sex and pregnancy, pushes parents to go ahead with such marriages.
Plight of child brides
It states that other reasons for the prevalence of child marriage are lower dowry, the patriarchal construct of 'women's honour' and the 'easy adaptation' of girls in new households.
The detrimental impact on such marriages is that it exposes girls to high-risk pregnancies as they become mothers even before attaining adulthood.
More than half of the women respondents, i.e. 51 per cent of child brides with at least two children, said that the gap between their first and second child was less than two years.?
In comparison, 59 per cent of child brides stated to have experienced teenage pregnancy.?A sizable proportion of adolescent mothers reported giving birth to babies with low birth weights.?
As per the study, 17 per cent and 16 per cent of child brides revealed having babies with low birth weight for their first and second child, respectively.
Prevalent in UP, Odhisa but numbers going down
Based on the observation of duty bearers and community members, the surveyors found that cases of child marriage in Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha were still prevalent. However, the numbers have gone down in recent years.
In contrast, the report says there was a discrepancy in the responses of duty bearers and community members in Maharashtra. While the duty bearers claimed that cases had decreased, the community members said that in some clusters, people managed to arrange child marriages in more significant numbers than before.
(With inputs from PTI)
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