India emerges world’s child marriage capital

New Delhi, October 12: Four UN agencies urged India to take "incremental action" to fight the scourge of child marriages in the country on Thursday when the first International Day of the Girl Child was observed across the world. The focus of the first observance of the day is on child marriage.

In a letter to Union minister of women and child development Krishna Tirath, heads of four UN agencies in India — UNICEF, UNFPA, UN Women and UN Information Centre — wrote, "Child marriage is not a solution to protecting girls from sexual crimes including rape."

This comes a day after former Haryana CM Om Prakash Chautala endorsed Haryana khap panchayat's suggestion to bring down marriageable age of teenagers to 16 to check sexual atrocities like rape.

In the letter, the UN agencies said, "More than 40% of the world's child marriages happen in India. In eight states of the country, more than half of young girls are married before the age of 18."

Speaking to TOI, Anne Stenhammer, regional programme director of UN Women, said, "Child marriage is a fundamental human rights violation and impacts all aspects of a girl's life. We want to alert and raise awareness on the negative effects of child marriage on girls and the society as a whole."

Child marriage denies a girl of her childhood, disrupts her education, limits her opportunities, increases her risk to be a victim of violence and jeopardizes her health. "It constitutes an obstacle to the achievement of nearly every Millennium Development Goal and the development of healthy communities," said Stenhammer.

The UN Women is conducting a programme to promote women's political leadership and governance in 16 districts in five states of India — Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Odisha, she said. The programme helped equip over half a million elected women representatives with knowledge and skills to participate in local governance.

"(Prevention of) child marriage is part of the agenda of the programme and of the mahila sabhas. Not just women, panchayats, society, community and the family must be involved to check child marriage," said Stenhammer.