Representative image of marriage.
Credit: iStock Photo
New Delhi: Recently, the Centre has found that there has been a drop in child marriages across the country.
In a study conducted across all the districts by the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights, over 1002 such cases were reported in 2022, a fall from the 1050 reported in 2021.
With 215 cases reported in 2022, Karnataka accounted for the highest number of child marriages.
Assam, with 163 cases, accounted for the second highest, followed by Tamil Nadu with 155 cases, and West Bengal with 121 cases.
The child rights body found that despite reminders to all 784 districts across the country, only 596 districts responded with and held meetings in their areas.
In most districts, the study noted, no meetings were held with Gram Pradhans, religious priests who are usually responsible for performing such marriages, and service providers that take part in these functions.
To draft the report, the commission wrote to Principal Secretaries of all states and UTs in March, asking them to issue directions to all District Magistrates or Collectors to prepare a school-wise list of children who either drop out of school, are not attending regularly, or are absent from school without intimation to the Principal.
They were also asked to conduct meetings for awareness programmes on Child Marriage with Child Development Programme Officers (CDPO), Child Welfare Committee (CWC), Child Welfare Police Officers (CWPO), Anganwadi Workers (AWW), as well as stakeholders of child marriages.
“The Commission held 30 virtual meetings with 784 Districts of 36 States/UTs between 1st April and 23th April, 2024 to review the activities conducted by the authorities of each district. The Commission received data from nearly 596 Districts spanning across 28 States and 8 Union Territories,” the study notes. In all, 2,92,525 meetings were held across 2,58,037 villages or blocks involving 1,22,17,006 participants.
Only 596 districts across 28 states and 8 union territories sent in data, and none were received from Goa and Ladakh.
“The data reveals that to map the number of children absent from school consecutively for 30 days and identifying children who are dropouts, out of school, or not attending school, was not conducted by many districts,” the study notes.
The NCPCR, in its study, also said that while there is a decline in the numbers between 2021 and 2022, in general, there has been an increase in reporting of child marriage.
“(This) signifies a growing awareness of the detrimental effects of child marriage. While this trend is concerning, it also suggests a hopeful prospect for reducing child marriages in the future,” it said.