TMC's Sushmita Dev sole woman on panel to review Bill to enhance legal age of marriage

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Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 2

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports, tasked to review and report back on the controversial Bill to enhance the legal age of marriage for women from 18 to 21 years, has only one woman member.

Move to raise marriage age

• The Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill 2021 seeks to amend the parent Act of 2006 besides the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, Indian Christian Marriage Act, Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act and Special Marriage Act.

The committee composition, as published on the website of the Rajya Sabha, shows TMC’s Sushmita Dev as the lone woman member of the committee.

Dev said more women should have been part of a committee mandated to look at the Bill which has far-reaching consequences for women’s rights and choices.

Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani had introduced The Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, 2021, in the Lok Sabha during the winter session of Parliament and urged Speaker Om Birla to refer the same to the standing committee for scrutiny after the Opposition demanded that all stakeholders should be engaged on the issue. The Bill seeks to bring the age of marriage for girls in India on a par with boys at 21 and has generated a heated debate across the spectrum. The parliamentary committee that will study the Bill is chaired by BJP’s Vinay Sahasrabuddhe. It has 31 members with Sushmita Dev as the sole woman represented in the committee.

This panel is among the eight parliamentary standing committees administered by the Rajya Sabha as against 16 department-related committees managed by the Lok Sabha. Ever since the introduction of the marriage age bill in the LS, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has flagged the move in several public rallies as a major step forward towards gender justice, parity and women’s equality and empowerment.

The Bll seeks to amend the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006 and was born out of the recommendations of a task force the government had set up under former Samata Party chief Jaya Jaitly.

Member, Health, NITI Aayog VK Paul was among the task force members.

While submitting the report to the government in December 2020, Jaitly had said, “The discussion on gender parity cannot be selective. When we speak of gender equality in every field, we cannot selectively leave out the field of marriage-related choices for girls and boys. If we retain the current legal age of marriage for women at 18 years and for boys at 21 years, we acknowledge that it is acceptable for boys to get more time to seek education and prepare for life while girls can cut down on those same choices and get married early.”

The task force members said they had engaged several stakeholders across religious groups, especially youngsters in universities, colleges and rural areas, and everyone had said the marriageable age for girls should be 22 or 23 years.