Child Marriage
Humans are the most complex thinking creatures that most of you may have ever come across.
Not for the reasons you may be thinking, like how humans can experience a wide plethora of emotions from just a single phrase or how they continue to harm the environment, even after knowing that it is just like cutting off your own legs with an axe (my fellow Indian readers would be able to make sense of this clumsily translated quote).
But getting back on topic, humans are complex creatures, that we all agree upon. But the reason they are being referred to as complex is because of their ability to group a number of humans into different groups and then find ways to discriminate against them or stereotype them.
Common examples of these can be observed in our society.
- Racism is the basis of discriminating against a person based on their skin color. It is widely prevalent still in the global communities, even though many steps have been taken to eradicate it. Unfortunately, human minds, though fickle at times, are especially stubborn when it comes to forgetting the teachings that have been instilled into them from a very young age.
- Castism is a problem that is prevalent on a rather large scale in India. The basis of generalizing people on their caste has become a common practice and the fact that instead of abolishing the idea and practice, the basis of seats and positions being reserved based on caste is further increasing the gap between people and making it a more prominent problem.
- Gender inequality is a common problem that doesn’t seem to be going away at any cost. A stubborn leech attached to humanity and their minds. Unfortunately, we haven’t found any way to make this leech let go.
‘Wrong things are easy to pick up, hard to forget.’
This is a quotation that is commonly seen being used by everyone at least once in their lives. It has never been truer.
- But the focus of this article is Child Marriage, a practice that shouldn’t have ever existed.
Introduction
Child Marriage, as the name might apply, is the practice where at least one of the to-be-married is a child or underaged, that is, a minor. In some cases, it has been observed that both the bride and groom are minors.
This is an illegal practice and is punishable by law. The practice stems from the root cause which is Gender Inequality, which just proves how harmful this leech is turning out to be.
In most cases, it has been observed that those involved in child marriages are minors and they are married to a partner who is significantly older than them. In many cases, the families are the ones who had the arrangement and were going to benefit from this (illegal) union. Many times, the reason for this is the arrangement of money for the families. Money really can make anyone do anything.
Continuing, for those who have never known about this practice, let us now know why this practice is illegal (even though it feels like everyone must feel like this is wrong).
Why Is Child Marriage An Illegal Practice?
Child Marriage, as mentioned before, is a practice deeply rooted and emerging from the most common problem, known as Gender Inequality.
When humans first started forming societies and nations, they drew up basic Human Rights that each individual had. Many of these basic rights include rights like Expression, Privacy, and similar. And these are not only for adults but also for minors. It concerns humans, not defined by age, gender (not anymore, anyway), ethnicity or similar basis of stereotypes.
But by forcing a child to marry someone before they are even of age, the basic right of the child is violated. And that is a grave violation. Many who have, in any way, been involved in child marriage, are given sentences that are almost as serious as the sentences given for those involved in child or organ trafficking. Just this should be enough to make anyone understand how cruel this practice must be.
It is cruel because it affects the growth of a child, their development, and their thinking. It affects them and leaves them afflicted with deep psychological wounds, that may never heal. If the family the child has been married into is abusive, even the physical growth of the child is affected.
In this way, they are taking away the right of a tiny human, one towards whom they had the responsibility to take care of. They are affecting and stunting the development of the next generation.
That’s why the practice is illegal.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.
How Gender Inequality Gave Birth To Child Marriage?
Blaming only Gender Inequality is just underestimating the severity and the complexness of thoughts and ideals behind the problem of child marriage.
According to most statistics, while gender inequality plays a major role behind child marriage practice even coming into existence, it is also ideals like social norms and problems like poverty that come into play in the continuation of this practice in most cases.
Then let us explore how these problems come into play.
Gender inequality, in most cases, is about women (or girls) being labeled the ‘second gender’. Not ‘second’ as in other but second as in ‘inferior’. Because of this, practices like female fetus abortion had come into play and sown discord among the societies in the world and even caused many problems in the global community. Around the same time, or maybe even earlier, had come the practice of child marriage in small, underdeveloped societies. This practice continued because of the livelihood and living conditions of the people.
Poverty is a widespread problem that can be seen in every society, even in advanced ones, though it is the backward societies that have the most problems in regard to this. Poverty had caused the practice to be more prevalent, for it was an easy way for the people to earn money and even if it wasn’t money, then it was any other thing that could benefit them. In some extreme cases, it was just the parents or guardians trying to get rid of their child so that their expenditure would be a little less. Absolutely abhorrent, but humans. Can’t change a thing because of humans.
But before poverty, there were also practices that created issues for people in poorer backward areas, which was why child marriage became a solution for them. Known in most areas as social norms, these practices included not having even a single girl child or only having one girl child, who would, later on, grow to be the bearer of the next generation, to ensure that their rituals and practices did not die out. Some had beliefs that each family should have more than two children in the family, or sometimes up to five or seven! Other beliefs included the practice of the girl being a pure virgin for her marriage and the family members of the in-laws checking for it. Physically before marriage older people touching a girl.
That’s… something that many of you must have never known. Take a moment to digest that.
So, yes. These are a few of the problems that have led to the prevalence of child marriage in all reaches of society and all regions of the world. Most of them, anyway.
Let’s look at what the United Nations, or more specifically, the UNICEF, thinks about this.
Where Does The UN Stand? The Perspective Of UNICEF And UN
UNICEF, on their website, has written “Child marriage threatens the lives, well-being, and futures of girls around the world.” “At UNICEF, we believe that child marriage is a form of violence against children. Our aim is to avert 500,000 child marriages in the region by 2021.”
That seems to already show what stand they have in the face of this problem which is Child Marriage.
With many facts and statistics on their page prove their work in abolishing the practice of Child Marriage. UNICEF also clearly states that even though most child marriages are dominated by the minor being a girl child, it also shows that up to one-sixth of the children are boys too.
Deeply rooted in gender inequality, it becomes increasingly clear that the girls (and boys) who go through this traumatic experience of being married at an age when they haven’t even fully developed, are in a way, being sold off.
First, looking at the fact that marrying off the child into a household that wants them, the parents, family or guardian, whoever may be responsible for the child, are washing their hands off for money or dowry. Simply, for benefit. Isn’t this like pawning off an object for something else in return? What difference has been left between an object to barter and a child who is being married as a minor?
Second, by selling off their child, they won’t be taking any responsibility for them anymore. It is now the duty of the in-laws to take care of the one who has married into their family. The guardians are now not responsible for anything that will happen to their child.
They won’t care.
They won’t care that the child might be abused.
They won’t care that the child might be sold off.
They don’t care what happens after they have sold off their child.
They don’t even have the intention to care.
They don’t feel the guilt.
After all, for them, the child was an object, not a human.
The child wasn’t someone who could feel or think.
And that’s what makes it scarier. That’s what it makes much, much, much worse.
Child Marriage In Different Societies
In advanced and backward societies, specifically.
1. Advanced Society:-
In advanced societies, it is quite common for people to know and find the practice of child marriage disgusting (this word shouldn’t be used, but there isn’t anything better to describe the acute feelings of most people towards this) and something that should be abolished.
This is further enhanced by all the stories of previous cases of child marriage that are released with all their details on news channels and online platforms to educate people about the crimes that one partakes in when they get involved in child marriage in any way, even by association or more severely involved when they turn a blind eye towards someone who is partaking in it.
Ignoring the problem won’t make it go away.
It will rather have the opposite effect.
The problem of Child Marriage will start to increase. The new schemes will have to be implemented; more campaigns would have to be started. It would become exactly the repetition of the problem of girl fetus abortion when the female fetus was aborted simply because it was predicted to be a girl. That problem, once again caused by Gender Inequality, continues to be a practice in backward societies and even in some advanced societies. Then let’s take a look at the other side.
2. Backward Societies:-
So, it may have been incredibly noticeable that there isn’t much to say write on under and about advanced societies, because it has become a common trait in most of those societies to come up with solutions to abolish practices and rituals that harm an individual in any way. While the quest is long and tedious, it has started to bear fruit and quite a lot of changes, positive ones.
Unfortunately, the situation in backward societies is a little worse. Okay, not a little. A lot worse.
First, it is a common trait in these kinds of societies to be afflicted with poverty (that makes it seem like poverty is a disease, and well, that is accurate. A bit too accurate.) Since we have already discussed how poverty acts as a buff for child marriage, it should be glaringly obvious what is the position of most societies in this category in the face of child marriage as a problem.
For them, it is a blessing.
By marrying off their child, they could earn benefits that wouldn’t have been easy to obtain earlier. By having a younger child marrying into their family, they could be sure that the bride would be a virgin (it is believed that virgins meant a superior ability to conceive and that girls who are virgins are pure, as though children aren’t.)
But this is the scene in backward societies.
There, issues like child marriage and gender inequality are common. Even more so, the women have already accepted that they are inferior and are treated like servants by the men. They don’t speak up. They endure every kind of abuse and treatment because they have grown up believing that they were lesser than men and their only duties were to serve the men and be regarded as breeding machines to give birth to more girls who could be oppressed and more boys who could oppress them. In many villages, this mentality is common and regarded as ‘normal’.
For them, who have grown up from a young age in these conditions, women were nothing more than objects and even they themselves believed it. Children, female children, more specifically, were, and are, brought up for the sole reason of being married off at a younger age to barter for benefits (in the forms of money, resources or land).
- That’s why the backward societies need to be educated, though volunteer work there doesn’t seem to make any difference.
Prohibition Of Child Marriage In India
Introduced and passed in the year 2006, in India, this Act was one of the ways the Government of India tried to control the problem of Child Marriage that had reached a critical level in the country.
However, the act continues to get amended. The latest amendment was just last year, in the year 2021 (in the middle of COVID-19, which continues to make life difficult all around the world).
The original Act of 2006 mentioned that the Act was in effect when a girl child, which is a girl below 18 years of age or a boy, a guy below the age of 21 years of age, are married. In these cases, the minor in the marriage can apply for annulment of the marriage. If the applicant of the annulment is considered a minor, then they have to be accompanied by a guardian as well as a Prohibition officer. On the other hand, if the applicant is not a minor, then they can apply for the annulment by themselves. These were just the basic statements that were added to the Act.
But the Act continues to be a part of controversies.
Recently, when the Act was amended again, the new change was the age that decided when a girl was considered a minor. Before, the age of a girl child to be considered a minor was below 18, but now, it is below 21. So, no girl below the age of 21 can be married in our country.
But this amendment sparked off a lot of issues and rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Debates, discussions, and heated arguments are accompanied by rude words, gestures, and implications. Nothing was missing.
It is still a controversial idea.
What do you think? Should the age have remained 18 or is it good that it has been increased to 21? Or are you of another opinion?
Conclusion
It must be predictable, what the conclusion is. Child Marriage is a hurtful, illegal practice that shouldn’t have ever existed in the first place but continues to be a constant, prevalent problem in the global community and while there are many campaigns and Acts and Bills that are passed and followed, organized and observed, much of the problem still remains.
But many famous personalities are working towards a world that won’t have this practice.
A small list is given below.
Orlando Bloom: As a Goodwill Ambassador of UNICEF, Orlando, when he isn’t being the gorgeous and talented elf prince, speaks up about the rights of children and against child marriage.
Malala: Another famous personality, Malala has been against child marriage for a long and looks forward to ending the practice.
Trisha Krishnan: Trisha Krishnan, an Indian actress, has been dedicated to her career and has also expressed her support for ending the practice of child marriage for good.
Beyoncé: The actress-singer is a prominent figure and has been making waves around the world, including speaking up against the illegal practice of child marriage.
Top 13 Interesting Facts About Child Marriage
Child Marriage is common in almost all countries on the planet and has been a prevalent problem even though there have many campaigns to abolish it. It is becoming almost as great of a problem as gender inequality.
Child Marriage has seen a steady decline in recent years but still continues to be a global affliction.
More than 100 million minor girls were set to be married before COVID-19 hit the world.
South Asia is the highest scorer on the board of amount of child marriages carried out each year.
Radhika is a young girl who refused to be married when she was a minor and brought the case to public attention in India.
Child Marriages also lead to the child being uneducated (more commonly observed in the case of girl brides), because if they ever went to an education institute, then they are forced to drop out.
Many women and girls in the backward societies believe that they exist to be the servants of men and their duty is to birth the next generation, so they sometimes provide drugs to their younger children to make them mature faster so that they can be married off even before they come of age.
Even though minor boys have fewer chances of being married, they still account for a sixth of the total child marriages, which is still an astounding number.
Up to one-third of the total population on the earth where the marriage was conducted when one or both were children is accounted in India and South Asia, making these the countries with the highest concentration of child marriages.
UNICEF is one of the leading figures that leads the fight against Child Marriage.
Even though the South Asian countries record one of the highest concert=nitration of child marriages, Niger, in Africa, is the sole country with the highest number of child marriages.
There are countries like Tanzania, where a child (Hindu or Muslim) can get married at the age of 12 and above, but the condition is that the marriage must not be consummated until the minor is at least 15 years of age (still a minor though. How do people even come up with these ideas?)
Social ‘norms’ are one of the main reasons behind child marriage being practiced continuously, but these ‘norms’ aren’t normal or widely accepted at all.
Akanksha Rout
Writer
13angle
