Child brides in Rajasthan chasing dreams with football training programme

A non-government organization in India has launched a football training program aimed at combating child marriages in the impoverished Indian state of Rajasthan.

Hundreds of girls have joined the program, Times of India reported,

Rajasthan is one of the states in India where child marriage is on high prevalence. Many dreams have been torn down at very young age by the trend of child marriage.

Child marriage rate in rural areas of Rajasthan is 89.4% while in urban areas it is 10.6% as per National Family Health Survey (NFHS), 2015-16. The average age for girls who get married before age 18 is 16.6 years in rural areas and 16.7 in urban areas.

Most child brides in Rajasthan have almost no choices except to follow the tradition.

Getting bound in marriage is against their wills but in the last two years, hundreds of girls have enrolled in football training programme initiated by an NGO, Mahila Jan Adhikar Samiti.

The girls enrolled in this training programme practice two hours everyday.

They are also raising their voices against child marriage in their villages. According to girls who are enrolled in this programme, they got courage and confidence because of playing football and they are now like support system for each other. Some girls have bigger dreams than just playing football.

Before these girls started playing football they were just glad to be allowed to study. Now the parents of these girls are changing their minds and have allowed them to play football, seeing how happy their daughters are in fields. These girls have now courage to speak against child marriage.

“Just talking to the villagers about child marriage wasn’t getting us very far.

The girls needed to speak for themselves, and there is nothing better at building confidence than sports. We organised a camp in November 2016, which was attended by 300 girls. That is how it began”, said Karuna Philip, the programme initiator.