India needs new ways to fight scourge of child marriage

MUMBAI: India must campaign on social media, rewrite text books and engage its young men if it is to tackle child marriage in a country where nearly half of females wed before the legal age, according to a report released on Friday.

Despite a law banning girls from marrying before they turn 18, the practice is deeply rooted in tradition and widely accepted in society. Yet it is rarely reported as a crime and officials are often reluctant to prosecute offenders.

As a result, India ranks among countries with the highest rates of child marriage in the world, accounting for a third of the global total of more than 700 million women, according to Unicef, the United Nations children’s agency.

“Despite the policy attention given to child marriage, implementation has remained ineffective in curbing the root causes, and failed to produce a substantial impact on its eradication,” charity ActionAid India said in its report.

“Legal efforts have failed to break the stranglehold of tradition and culture that continues to support child marriage. “While boys also marry in childhood, girls are disproportionately affected.

Early marriage makes it more likely that girls will drop out of school, and campaigners say it also increases the risks of exploitation, sexual violence, domestic abuse and death in childbirth. While poverty and low levels of female literacy are often blamed for child marriage, the practice is prevalent even in wealthy households.