By Natalia Urzola
Child marriages in India are fairly common. According to UNICEF, South Asia is home to the largest number of child brides. The Covid-19 pandemic, which has caused significant economic hardship, has only worsened this situation. Before the pandemic hit, child marriages in India often involved 16 to 17 years old; now girls as young as 12 are becoming child brides.
Marriage Laws in India
The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006 (“the Act”) specifies that the minimum legal age to marry in India is 18 for girls and 21 for boys. Although each religion in India creates its own rules on when and whom one can marry, the Supreme Court of India ruled that the Act has priority over personal laws, such as the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) which governs child marriage in the Muslim community.
India has committed to eliminating child marriage by 2030 in line with target 5.3 of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The country also acceded to the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1992, and ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in 1993, both relevant to guaranteeing free and full consent to marriage. Finally, India is also a member of the South Asia Initiative to End Violence Against Children, which adopted a regional action plan to end child marriage.
In June 2020, the Ministry of Women and Child Development set up a Task Force to study the correlation between early motherhood and the age of marriage, and devised a proposal to raise the age of marriage from 18 to 21 as a way of delaying pregnancy. This proposal was met with resistance. A number of young activists are opposed to raising the legal age of marriage, which was the theme of a webinar hosted by the American Jewish World Service and The Child, Early & Forced Marriage and Sexuality Working Group, and Partners held on December 16, 2020.
Controversial proposal to raise the age of marriage in India
The panelists included lawyers and activists currently working on the issues surrounding child marriage in India, as well as young leaders working on empowering others to make their own decisions. Madhu Mehra, founding member of Partners for Law in Development, and Archana Dwivedi, from Nirantar Trust, were emphatic in their views that the proposal to raise the legal age to marry will not meet its goals since focusing on age masks other root causes of child marriage. The proposal comes from the government belief that raising the legal age will empower girls and young women, increase their access to education and improve the infant mortality rate. However, a report published by ‘Young Voices: National Working Group’ concluded that this measure will either harm young women or have no impact unless the root causes of women’s disempowerment are addressed.
The main arguments in favor of the proposed increase in the legal age to marry are: (1) gender equality, since the legal age to marry is currently 21 for boys and 18 for girls, and (2) health and demographic benefits. However, there is no actual evidence that increasing the legal age to marry will have the desired effect of reducing pregnancies. Furthermore, advancing girls’ rights and gender equality can arguably be better achieved through other means, such as providing high-quality health care during and after pregnancy, and combatting malnutrition. India already has several programs of the sort, but effective implementation is needed. The proposed change will arguably hinder efforts to develop healthy sexuality among adolescents in India, a subject that has been largely ignored and considered taboo. As for the goal of gender equality, it could be achieved by lowering the age for boys to marry to 18, though there are cultural considerations to take into account before doing so.
Artwork by former IANGEL intern, Xochitl Diaz-Suarez.
Another issue is that of sexual and reproductive rights being controlled by legal provisions on child marriage, without providing the necessary tools to make informed decisions. As Shipra Jha, from Girls not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage noted, any legal reform directed toward ending child marriage and enforcing consent should be accompanied by an agenda of sexual and reproductive health and rights education improving access to these services.
Other countries throughout the world, including Brazil, have been adjusting their legal frameworks to set the minimum age to marry to 18. However, cohabitation has also become more common in recent years, allowing child unions to continue being performed, although they are not legally a marriage, making them even harder to monitor.
Finally, social and cultural norms that promote stigma against premarital sex and pregnancy, as well as inter-religious unions are deeply intertwined with patriarchal notions of caste and religion, where gender politics are a main problem. Girls are still seen as a burden and a liability for their parents. Access to education and jobs are among the primary drivers of change to decrease child marriage around the world, allowing young people to make informed decisions about their lives.
IANGEL’s Girls’ Rights Project
Girls worldwide are experiencing seemingly unending violations of their rights, due to the lack of laws and policies that truly protect them. In countries where some of these laws already exist, the problem translates to poor enforcement mechanisms, and the existence of patriarchal stereotypes deeply embedded in society. These issues are being addressed by IANGEL’s Girls’ Rights Project.
The Girls’ Rights Research Project is collecting information from countries in three regions of the world on three subjects related to girls’ autonomy: sexual and reproductive rights, female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM), and child marriage. It intends to provide a thorough review of laws affecting minors (those under 18 years old) in these three areas in the three global regions where child marriage, lack of access to reproductive healthcare, and FGM are most prevalent. The research also aims to identify any gaps in legislation and obstacles in enforcement, and to develop a set of specific guidelines that will inform efforts to expand girls’ rights related to sexual and reproductive health and bodily autonomy. Reaching the ultimate goal of enhancing girls’ right to self-determination also requires combating gender-based violence, including the violence of child, early and forced marriage.
It is important to conduct this research so it can inform decisions about what legal reforms are actually needed. Adopting measures that obscure the root causes of girls’ rights violations will perpetuate an unproductive cycle of laws and policies that foster, rather the eliminate, gender inequality in modern society.
Additional Resources
More about the Girls Rights Project
Girls’ Rights Project on Youtube