Haryana bears child marriage shame

SHE was just 12, barely out of childhood, when her parents decided it was time she became a bride. In the darkness of the night in Kaithal’s Dhand village of Haryana, dressed in borrowed finery, she was married off to a 17-year-old boy. The match, they said, was “too good to refuse.” Fifteen hours later, the police arrived. The law had been broken — again. And the cost was her childhood. Meanwhile, in Punjab’s Muktsar district, eight such marriages have been quietly stopped in the past two years. Teachers, helplines and district officials intervened in time. In each case, the girls were saved — just barely — from a fate they hadn't chosen. Most came from migrant worker families, where poverty and tradition still whisper that a girl is safest when married early.