Crackdown on child marriage: Arrests ill-motivated, not a solution

The Assam government’s crackdown on child marriages is more a police action directed against Muslims than an attempt to address a social problem. Over 2,000 men, most of them Muslims, have been arrested in the last few days.

Their wives and children are protesting at police stations and demanding the release of their breadwinners. Child marriages are a social problem, but the solution is not to criminalise them and punish the husbands retrospectively and without even a warning. Assam’s performance on social indicators like maternal mortality and child mortality is not good, and one reason may be the large number of child marriages.

According to the National Family Health Survey-5, some 32% women in the state get married before the legal minimum age, against the national average of 25%. Even when the average is high, no other state has resorted to punitive action like Assam has. It is likely that Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has thought he would set an example that others like Yogi Adityanath can emulate.

Read | Cries get louder as Assam arrests nearly 2,300 men for child marriage

Child marriages take place mainly because of the poverty of families, lack of education of girls and the absence of health facilities. All parameters of women’s empowerment are low in Assam. About 20% of the women are illiterate, and only 30% in the 15-49 age group have completed schooling, as against the national average of 41%. Women’s participation in the workforce is low. It is these factors which have contributed to the high number of child marriages. Since Muslims are poorer and more backward than others, there are more child marriages among them.

It is not to be dealt with under provisions of the POCSO and the Child Marriages Prohibition Act. It should not be considered just as a violation of law but as a social and economic problem. The solution is to improve the social, educational and economic status of people, especially women.

Many people may have entered into child marriages without knowing there was a law against them. Some others may not have taken the violation seriously because the government has not enforced the law for decades. If the Assam government is serious, it can make the implementation of the law prospective, as some states have done. In Assam, the illegal marriages can be invalidated only by the husband or the wife.

This will not happen, and most families will have their breadwinners in jail. It is a very human problem, and it is the height of callousness and cruelty to say, as Sarma said, that “one generation will have to suffer”. This is harassment, done deliberately to make an impact, and the message is for the entire community.