Rise in child marriage complaints in Jind

QUOTE (NOT IN COPY): Most victims adolescent girls

“Most of the child marriage complaints received are of girls aged between 14 and 16 years. Significantly, a majority of victims are girls who belong to poor or low-middle class families.”

Sunita Sharma, child marriage prohibition officer

Deepender Deswal

Tribune News Service

Jind, December 14

A 19-year-old boy, who was pursuing his diploma in engineering, along with his elder brother, was being married off against his wishes in a Jind village two months ago. When he failed to convince his family, he contacted the child marriage prohibition officer, who rushed to the village to intervene and persuaded the family againt marrying the younger sibling.

Similarly, a girl aged 16 was set to be married off to a youth even though she wanted to continue her schooling. The girl contacted on the phone number given by a prohibition officer during an awareness camp in her school. She too was saved by the team of the officials.

These incidents indicated that a girl child is still considered a burden in poor and lower-middle class families. The Jind district administration has received complaints regarding 30 child marriages, that too, mostly from the rural segments this year. This reveals that lack of education coupled with poor financial condition of families lead to child marriages.

Child marriage prohibition officer Sunita Sharma said in some cases, families try to marry off their younger child — girl or boy — along with the elder sibling. “They do so in an attempt to save the expense of organising marriage functions. However, when we reach out to such families, many of them agree to defer the marriages of the minor child till their attain a marriageable age,” she added.

Jind, which is located in the centre of Haryana, is considered sluggish in terms of infrastructural development. The socio-economic status of the people hailing from the rural areas also needs to be improved. The khap panchayats, which were earlier termed as enforcers of regressive diktats, in fact have recently embarked upon the drive to educate girl child. Bibipur village has emerged as the torchbearer of the ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ campaign.

A district officer, however, said government and non-government organisations need to make multi-pronged efforts efforts to improve the condition of the girl child and socio-economic and educational scenario of rural areas.