Since lockdown, 74 child marriages prevented in Ballari dist

Ballari: District officials have stopped as many as 74 child marriages from the day the lockdown was declared. While FIRs have been registered in 14 cases, undertakings have been collected from parents in the 60 other instances.
Officials however say several child marriages have been conducted in the same period across the districts by parents who took several measures to ensure the weddings do not attract any attention.The parents arranged weddings within the family, did not print wedding cards and avoided relatives and neighbours, officials said.
Recently, a 17-year-old girl studying in PUC contacted police and said her parents wanted to get her married without her consent and sought help. A resident of Ballari, the girl had been hidden in Malakanadoddi a remote village of Kurnool district in Andhra Pradesh. Ballari officials contacted their counterparts in Kurnool and ensured the girl was rescued.
Officials said, this was a rare occasion in which a girl voluntarily requested to stop her wedding, adding that the girls’ boyfriends, neighbours, relatives and the general public tip them off about child marriages.
Deputy director of women and child development department R Nagraj said, “Of the 74 child marriages that we stopped since the lockdown, the highest were at Sandur taluk at 26 followed by 18 in Ballari. Twelve of the rescued girls have been kept in a juvenile home for further proceedings.”
District child right protection officer Syed Chand Basha told TOI, “At Kolagallu village, parents had taken permission for the wedding of a legal age couple. When we went to the marriage site, we were shocked to see that the parents were also getting a pair of underage children married.”
Hosapete CDPO Amerash sought the support of the public to help prevent child marriages.