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India’s West Bengal state tries to put an end to child marriages: ‘we want to save all girls’
- Child marriages have become more common in India’s eastern state of West Bengal, accounting for 15.2 per cent of all child marriages in the country
- But programmes by youths, religious leaders and mothers are trying to put a stop to this practice
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In September, when the mother of 17-year-old Pinki Sahoo* in West Bengal’s Dakshin Dinajpur had arranged her marriage to a construction worker, the teen informed her school in a desperate plea for help to stop the union.
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One of her teachers along with a child rights’ activist took the matter to local authorities, who eventually convinced Sahoo’s mother, a beedi roller, not to allow her daughter to marry before the age of 18.
“There are many poor families, like mine, who want to get their daughters married as early as possible so that they don’t have to raise them any longer,” Sahoo told This Week in Asia.
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The legal age for marriage in India is 21 for men and 18 for women. However, child marriages, both forced and voluntary, have become more common in India’s eastern state of West Bengal. According to a January study by medical journal The Lancet, the state accounts for 15.2 per cent of all child marriages in India.
According to Unicef, India is home to 223 million child brides – the largest number globally.
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