Odisha lays road to child marriage-free society

As a result, 12,000 villages in Odisha are child marriage free now, the first being Rugudipalli in Subarnapur district which got the tag in January 2020.
(Photo | Special Arrangement)
(Photo | Special Arrangement)

Till four years ago, seeking education or a life beyond marriage was difficult for many minor girls in rural Odisha. Blame it on poverty and societal pressure, child marriages had become an undisputed norm. Not any more though.

With an aim to rid Odisha of the social aberration, the Odisha Government rolled out an action plan in 2019. Today, not just the government but communities, families and both girls and boys are leading the charge to end child marriages.

As a result, 12,000 villages in Odisha are child marriage free now, the first being Rugudipalli in Subarnapur district which got the tag in January 2020. On January 3 this year, Ganjam became the first district in the State to be free of child marriage.

Authorities of Women and Child Development department said the journey of preventing early marriages in 12,000 villages has been an arduous one but with sustained awareness campaigns and monitoring by the administrations, in collaboration with Action Aid, Childline, UNICEF and several other voluntary groups, the number of such weddings is gradually coming down.

Child marriages in Odisha have declined by 0.8 percent (pc) in the last six years if the National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5) is any indication. While the NFHS-5 (2019-21) states that around 20.5 pc of women aged 20-24 years got married before attaining the legal minimum age of 18 years, it was 21.3 pc in NFHS-4 (2015-16). This is below the current (NFHS-5) national average of 23.3 pc. In NFHS-3 (2005-06), the percentage of women who got married before attaining the legal age was 37.2 and 4.2 in case of men. It was 37.6 percent in NFHS-2 (1998-91) for women.

According to the reports of Women and Child Development Department, the number of child marriages prevented in the last five years is 324 in 2017, 411 in 2018, 657 in 2019, 1,179 in 2020 and 1,734 in 2021.

Action plan to end early marriages

The State government plans to reduce child marriages for girls from 21.3 pc to 10 pc and from 11 pc to 6 pc for boys by 2024 and completely end early marriages in Odisha by 2030. For this purpose, all the districts are initiating measures laid down in the State Strategic Action Plan (2019-2024) which was rolled out in October, 2019. Currently, WCD department is collaborating with ActionAid and UNICEF to implement the action plan in 25 districts.

"Every district has formed its task force headed by the Collector and devised its own criteria to identify villages with a high incidence of such marriages. Apart from awareness and sensitisation drives starting from village to district level, the whole process has been made community-driven. Village-level child-marriage prohibition committees (VLCMPC) have been formed to keep an eye on girls opting out of schools and child marriages. Besides, panchayati raj institution members and State Police are actively involved in the monitoring process," said the state's Chief Child Marriage Prohibition Officer Arvind Agarwal.

The monitoring does not end here. Implementation of the Strategic Action Plan (SAP) to end child marriage and tracking of adolescents is reviewed regularly. Besides, there is a designated day/date - Day for Children - declared in all 30 districts for the regularisation of task force committee meetings at all levels in every quarter.

Many districts have launched their independent campaigns to end the practice. Be it ‘Aparajita’ in Koraput, ‘Nirbhaya Kadhi’ in Ganjam, ‘Balya Bibah Pratirodha Manch’ in Kandhamal, ‘Yes to School, No to Child Marriage Sankalp’ in Subarnapur, ‘Kaplana Abhiyan’ in Dhenkanal, ‘Prachesta’ in Rayagada, ‘Pratigyan’ in Gajapati, ‘Anwesha’ in Nabarangpur or ‘Malyabanta Nandini’ in Malkangiri, the district administrations are taking proactive measures to stop early marriages and ensure education and skill development of rescued adolescent girls and boys. For instance, under 'Nirbhaya Kadhi', the Ganjam administration is now providing `50,000 to every person providing information on a child marriage.

Monitoring adolescent population

One of the biggest highlights of the action plan is 'ADVIKA' (Every Girl is Unique), a programme which was implemented in 2020 through anganwadi centres across the State. Aimed at empowerment of adolescent girls - aged between 10 and 19 years - through education and skill development, it has reached 10 lakh adolescent girls so far. Among them, 13,601 vulnerable adolescents who were rescued from early marriage have been linked with various social protection schemes, skill training, ITIs and other vocational training through Advika platform. Under it, as many as 1.5 lakh Sakhi Saheli and Sakha Bandhus have been identified as adolescent peer leaders from each anganwadi centre and 3,000 of them are trained as community mentors in identifying drop outs, mobilising communities, tracking of vulnerable children and their families for linking into social protection schemes.

Activists said education of children and their families is essential to root out the practice. "The most important thing needed to end this social evil is creating awareness on the importance of education. Although the change is happening with even girls voicing their resistance to early marriage, what needs to be done now is to ensure that girls and boys who are rescued from early marriages be put back into the education system or skilled," said Ghasiram Panda, national manager of the Ending Child Marriage Programme of Action Aid India. In 2017, acting on a PIL by Panda, the Orissa High Court had called for terming child marriages as void ab initio. A State committee was subsequently formed to examine this but it was revealed that the repercussions of declaring all child marriages as void ab initio cannot be handled by the government. However, the committee said that the Orissa Prohibition of Child Marriage Rules, 2009 could be amended to accommodate more provisions which was done in 2019. This also led to formation of the State Strategic Action Plan.

Areas of concern

Despite the positive steps, what remains a concern is that 12 districts in Odisha still have a higher percentage of child marriages in comparison to the national average of 23.3 pc. They are Nabarangpur 39.4 pc, Nayagarh 35.7, Koraput 35.5, Malkangiri 32.4, Rayagada 33.2, Mayurbhanj 31.3, Keonjhar 29, Gajapati 28.1, Balasore 26.4, Boudh 25.3, Angul 25 and Dhenkanal 23.7. On a positive note, child marriages are on a decreasing trend in Malkangiri, Rayagada, Mayurbhanj and Dhenkanal during various measures being initiated by the district administrations concerned.

Besides, there has been no change in the percentage of young married women in the age group of 15 to 19 who are either pregnant with their first child or have already given birth. This percentage has remained 8 in both NFHS-4 and 5.

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