COMMUNITY ACTION For PREVENTING EARLY MARRIAGE IN INDIA

In one year alone (2023-4), members of of White Ribbon Alliance India have been instrumental in stopping 95 child marriages in the Bhilwara District of Rajasthan. ‘Child marriage is illegal in India,’ says Smita Bajpai from WRA India. ‘Yet we see girls as young as 7 or 9 being married.’ 

Now WRA Rajasthan’s members are helping to prevent child marriages and support the law.  ‘A community mobilisation campaign was implemented by a team of fifteen people who have a good access to communities in the 150 intervention villages,’ says Arun Kumawat, Executive Director of the local NGO, Navachar.

To begin with, discussions were held with young girls on their aspirations, and on the pros and cons of early marriage. Dialogues with parents, care givers, service providers and district administrators followed. Candlelight marches were organised to raise awareness of the risks of early marriage.

‘We build rapport with the community,’ says Jitendra Singh, Navachar’s Project Coordinator, ‘and when we can see - from invites, decorations, contracts to caterers – that there is an impending marriage, we enquire about the age of the bride in subtle ways. Our team then talks to the parents and informs them about the consequences of early marriage. As a result, more than 95 parents decided to stop the marriages of their daughters. The Panchayats (local self-government) took the responsibility to ensure that girls are not married before they attain 18 years. The local administration and police stepped in when needed.’

WRA India and partners are also addressing the cultural, social and economic reasons behind early marriage. ‘Parents are worried about the high risks (of sexual assault) faced by their girls, and marriage provides some security against this,’ says Smita Bajpai. ‘And weddings cost money, so we often see that when a girl is married, her little sister will be married at the same time; two or three for the price of one.

Girls’ education is also a way forward. ‘In one survey in a tribal block of Rajasthan’ says Bajpai, ‘we found that of a thousand adolescent girls, not one was married before 18. One of the reasons is because girls from this area are earning money from jobs – in factories, fields or government schemes - and so they are seen as assets to the family.’