Child Marriage Free India

About Organization

Indian Social Welfare Society (ISWS) is dedicated to the development of the deprived people (backward and poor rural women, people with disabilities, child labour, victims of trafficking and violence) of Gondia. The organization is working on the following issue of Child Marriage, Child Trafficking, Child Labour and Child Sexual Abuse. The organization participated and organized Child Marriage Free India Campaign in Gondia and Akola District of Maharashtra covering over 300 villages under the project.

The Campaign Activities included

Akshaya Tritiya Campaign – Bal Vivah Mukt Bharat Abhiyan campaign was organized during 24 April 2023 dates and conducted events in various temple places in Gondia district. The campaign reached out to all religious leaders to pledge to prevent and end child marriage in their villages, districts.
June Action Month – Indian Social Welfare Society Gondia and Akola District the organization conducted the action month with the objective of Social Awareness and prevented 8 child marriages and1 FIRs got registered. The campaign was conducted in collaboration with DCPO, Police Department and CWC departments and covered by local level media with an outreach of directly and through online.
16 October 2023 – Child Marriage Free India Campaign Event – The campaign event was conducted in Gondia and Akola district locations rural and urban area covering mostly villages in collaboration SP office, Collector office, DCPU, CWC, Education departments with notifications issued by SP office departments. The campaign was organized in 2 districts, 300 villages with 2,85,000 population with an outreach of Women, school children, Farmer, Teachers, Sarpanch, and Office bearers of all village committees and villagers

Campaign highlights: Awareness on Child Marriage Free India, Stop Child Trafficking and Stop Child Labor, Stop Sexual sexual abuse and other activities, etc. Individual, Pledge, Family Pledge, Group Pledge, village-level awareness program, and Awareness Program

Campaign Photo

Campaign Media Coverage

Background

Child marriage is not just an age-old social evil, but also a heinous crime that robs children of their childhood. Child marriage is a “crime against children” that violates basic human rights, minor girls are forced to marry and live a life of mental trauma, physical and biological stress, domestic violence including limited access to education and increased vulnerability to domestic violence. The consequences of child marriage are severe and extensive. Some of the specific consequences include: early pregnancies leading to complications and higher rate of maternal mortality and death of infants, malnutrition among both the infant and the mother, increased vulnerability to reproductive health, disruption in girl’s education and thereby reduction in opportunities of her personal and professional development, domestic violence and abuse, limited decision making powers in the household, and mental health issues.

India’s Census 2011 revealed 12 million children were married before attaining the legal age, of which 5.2 million were girls. Globally, child marriage is identified as a crime and a menace that needs to be eliminated. It finds space in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, under target 5.3 of Goal 5 that states elimination of all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation by 2025.

The latest National Family Health Survey (2019-21) shows that although there is a drop in the overall rate of child marriages, from 26.8% in the National Family Health Survey (NFHS 4) to 23.3% in NFHS-5, it is still high despite laws, programmes and schemes in place to address the issue.

Child Marriage Free India Campaign

Understanding the seriousness of the issue, the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in W.P. Civil 382 of 2013 pronounced that the sexual intercourse committed by the husband upon his wife being under the age of 18 years with or without her consent can be constituted as rape. To address this, the most definitive and audacious commitment to end child marriage was made with the launch of Child Marriage Free India campaign.

Child Marriage Free India (CMFI) is a nationwide campaign led by women leaders and a coalition of more than 160 NGOs spanning more than 300 districts working to eliminate child marriage in India. CMFI is working to attain the tipping point of child marriage, after which the society does not accept this evil practice and that will happen when the prevalence of child marriage is brought down to 5.5% by 2030, from the current national prevalence rate of 23.3%. This is being done by initially targeting 257 high-prevalence districts and gradually focusing on all the districts of the country.

Child marriage results in child rape, resulting in child pregnancy, and in a large number of cases, may lead to child deaths. For decades, we have been losing generations of our children to child marriage. The Child Marriage Free India campaign has received extended support from various Departments and Institutions of over 28 States. So far, across India more than 5 crore people have taken the pledge to end child marriage over the last one year through the efforts of the Child Marriage Free India Campaign.

Know more about the Child Marriage Free India (CMFI) Campaign: https://www.childmarriagefreeindia.org/

The Way Forward: PICKET Strategy to End Child Marriage

The Way Forward: PICKET Strategy to End Child Marriage

Addressing the issue of child marriage, requires a comprehensive and coordinated approach of different government departments, institutions, statutory bodies, and civil society organisations.

Tipping Point to end child marriage

WHEN CHILDREN HAVE CHILDREN – TIPPING POINT TO END CHILD MARRIAGE Book authored by Mr Bhuwan Ribhu is an action plan to eliminate child marriage in India by 2030. It looks at the existing data on child marriage and lists 257 districts in India where the issue of child marriage is worst, which means where the occurrence of this evil practice is highest as compared to national numbers.

Tipping Point is the threshold required in an ecosystem needed to tilt the scale of the problem towards a point of no-return. The Tipping Point of Child Marriage is the critical point after which the society does not accept child marriage.

Tipping Point Methodology

The aim of reduction of 60 percent of child marriage is assumed to bring down the incidence of child marriage to 5.5 percent in the next nine years from 2021, from the last available estimates i.e., NFHS-5, till 2030. An additional assumption is that such a focused and elaborate intervention against child marriage would have a ripple effect.

In order to reach the Tipping Point, the Author proposes strategy at national and district level.

National Level strategy where Governments, Institutions, statutory bodies, etc. work towards prevention, protection, increased investment, improved prosecution, convergence and use of technology for monitoring
District Level strategy is similar to national level strategy but includes district administration, Panchayats, civil society, NGOs, other functionaries, parents and children who work collectively to prevent, report, and take action against child marriage

Case Study – Preventing Child Marriage
ASHA’S STORY, MAHARASHTRA

Names changed; Asha not pictured

I am Asha, 17 year old, studying in 11^th standard.

As per my family background my father is daily wage worker and my mother is housewife. I meet with one boy whose age is 27 years old. When, I am studying in 10^th class. I like his nature and he is doing good job in metro city. He is belonging to well settled family. My family also agrees with this marriage because of same cast. But, I’ m not aware about this is child marriage. My marriage date is fixed and all guest come in my home. Wedding Ceremony is supposed to done.

Damini Pathak and Indian Social Welfare Society came to my wedding function but my wedding is already done. Guest who came in my wedding, they are very angry with ISWS Team and made crowd around them. Near about 100 guest came in my home they try to attack on team. But due to police they saved.

After that, we went to Police station and First Investigation Report (FIR) is done against my parents under Child Marriage Act 2006. Then, I produced in front of CWC. They provided counseling to me and my family.

Now, I took admission in 12^th standard. I would like to become beautician in my life. I did beautician course and continue my passion.