Child marriage in Bundelkhand

Child marriage in Bundelkhand

May 3, 2010

It was by sheer accident that we spotted a teenage boy with some unusual make-up (white dots on his forehead) seated in a vehicle parked on the roadside. I was on my way to visit some MGNREGS work sites along with a colleague and some local social activists, and remarked on the boy’s unusual face decoration.

 

Just then, one of my travel companions, a worker attached to a voluntary organization called “Jagruti Nehru Yuva Mandal”, shouted “Oh my God, it’s a marriage party… a baal vivaah (child marriage)! Seeing us jump out of our vehicle, the villagers tried to drive off but stopped when they saw my colleague taking pictures.

They immediately brought out the newly wedded couple. The groom, whose name was Sunil, was 12 according to his mother, but looked no more than 10 years old. He had just been joined in matrimony to Santoshi, who was apparently 14 years old.

“We got them married just now,” said Sunil’s mother Bimla proudly. She said they had gone ahead with the marriage after Sunil’s older brothers marriage had failed to produce any children. “What do I do? I want grandchildren!” she said without a trace of remorse, when asked if a 12-year-old boy was not too young to get married. “This is
our tradition. I got married when I was 12. Nothing happened to me!” she said.

Bimla says her son is old enough to work as a blacksmith and is therefore also old enough to be married. Child marriage, though not very common, still happens in the Bundelkhand  region. Social activists in the area say that there are under-aged couples participating even in community marriages organized by some politicians, but said no one protested because they did not want to compromise the political value of the event.

Although child marriages have been against the law in India since 1929, it has clearly not been effective in containing this practice. A further amendment to the 1929 law contains provisions to prohibit child marriage and enhances the punishment for those who abet, promote and solemnize marriages between boys below 21 and girls below 18 years of age.

According to Unicef’s “State of the World’s Children-2009” report, 47% of India’s women aged 20–24 were married before the legal age of 18, with 56% of such marriages occurring in rural areas. The report also showed that 40% of the world’s child marriages occurred in India.