Cabinet Clears Proposal To Raise Minimum Age For Marriage For Women From 18 To 21

The Union Cabinet passed a proposal to raise the legal age of marriage for women from 18 to 21 years, making it the same as men.

Presently, the minimum age of marriage for men is 21 but for women, it is 18.

The proposal was cleared on recommendations submitted to Niti Aayog by the Centre¡¯s task force.

BCCL

The committee was set up in June under Jaya Jaitly to review the legal age for marriage for women. It was supposed to submit its recommendations by July 31. The committee had to examine the correlation of age of marriage and motherhood with implications on the health of mothers and infants, the impact of the age of marriage on infant mortality rate, maternal mortality rate, total fertility rate, the sex ratio at birth, and child sex ratio.

Longstanding demand

In 2018, the National Human Rights Commission had also suggested that the marriageable age should be uniform for both men and women in the country.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also mentioned this in his Independence Day speech this year.

AFP

¡°We have set up a committee to deliberate on the minimum age for marriage of our daughters,¡± the prime minister said in his address to the nation. ¡°We will take an appropriate decision after the committee submits its report,¡± he had said.

The committee which also had VK Paul, senior officials of the Health Ministry, Ministry of Women and Child Development, Law Ministry as members had submitted its recommendation earlier this month stating that a woman must be at least 21 years old at the time of first pregnancy.

Other amendments on the pipeline

According to reports, the government will now look to introduce amendments to the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, Special Marriage Act, and other personal laws such as the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, to revise the legal marriage age.

UNSPLASH

Rights groups have long campaigned to raise the legal marriage age from 18 saying that it will help in women's empowerment as their chances of getting an education and finding a job increases if the minimum age is raised.

Even with the current minimum age limit of 18 for girls, child marriage is a menace that the country has failed to end.

AP

Estimates suggest that each year, at least 1.5 million girls under 18 get married in India, which makes it home to the largest number of child brides in the world - accounting for a third of the global total. Nearly 16 per cent adolescent girls aged 15-19 are currently married.

For more on news and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News.