The New Nation - Internet Edition

CHILD marriage is a crippling medical and social burden of women in India and poses a demographic threat to the entire world as warned by health experts. Specialists in public health from India and the United States looked at data for 22,807 women aged 20-24 selected from a geographical and social cross-section of Indian society, who took part in a survey carried out in 2005 and 2006. A total of 44.5 per cent of the women had been wed by the time they were 18, set as the 'legal age for marriage' since 1978. Of these, 22.6 per cent had been married before the age of 16 and 2.6 per cent before the age of 13.

Women who had been child brides were 37 per cent likelier not to have used contraception before their first child was born; seven times likelier to have a repeat childbirth in less than 24 months. The women were also more than twice as likely to have multiple unwanted pregnancies, nearly 50 per cent likelier to seek sterilisation compared with counterparts who had married after the age of 18. Child marriage stunts education and vocational opportunities for a large sector of the population. Furthermore, marriage at a very young age has grave health consequences for both the young women and their children.

A survey conducted in 1998-1999 estimated that 50 per cent of Indian women aged 20-24 were married as children which means that the phenomenon has retreated by just a fraction. The survey results suggest that neither recent progress in economic and women's development, nor existing policy or programmatic efforts to prevent child marriage and promote maternal and child health have been sufficient to reduce the prevalence of child marriage. Legislation against child marriage remains confined to papers.