Purulia: Every second girl in India is married underage, according to UNFPA data. The UNFPA also says that India has the highest number of child brides. Nearly 47 per cent of girls are married under the legal age of 18. The agency adds that nearly 140 million child marriages may take place between 2011 and 2020 across most developing nations. This means that on an average, 39,000 child marriages will happen everyday.
It is this scary statistic that 16-year-old Sangita Bauri says she wants to change. She won't allow any child marriage in West Bengal's Purulia district, not under her watchful eyes.
Four years ago, she herself was on the verge of becoming a child bride. Her grandmother wanted to marry her off just because she was the oldest girl in the family.
However, it was in the local child labour school that Sangita learnt that marrying off a girl before 18 was illegal. Today she's studying in Class 8 and wants to be a policewoman....
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04:54 PM, May 01, 2013
Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Government on Wednesday decided to change the rule which makes those getting married before attaining the required age ineligible for government job. The decision was taken by the state cabinet at a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Bhopal. "Child-marriage is arranged by the parents because of the prevailing customs; the children (who get married) have no role in the decision and they unnecessarily...
01:55 AM, Apr 25, 2013
Girls from the desert villages in Rajasthan, which infamous for female foeticide and child marriages, are benefiting, thanks to residential education camps. From would be child brides, they are now looking at financial independence. ...
10:36 AM, Apr 02, 2013
A Sudani national was arrested on charge of forcibly marrying a minor girl at Moghalpura in Hyderabad, the police said on Saturday. Three others, including a woman, were also arrested for helping him in the marriage, they said. ...
09:12 AM, Mar 02, 2013
In what is a 'rags to riches' story, Chanda Zaveri fled from the pressures of getting married at 17 and returned home 30 years later as a millionaire. Born in a conservative Marwari family, her mother wanted to force her into a marriage that she did not want and a life that she did not choose. ...
10:29 AM, Feb 01, 2013
New Delhi: Former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala on Thursday seemed to have toned down his stance on rapes, albeit he did not totally disown it. After widespread criticism over his backing to the khap Panchayat's bizarre views on rapes and solutions to sexual crimes, the Haryana Opposition leader on Thursday said that he did not support their idea. However, in the same breath he added that he did...
01:44 PM, Oct 11, 2012
Two more rapes reported in the last 24 hours in Haryana, making the tally of 15 rapes in 31 days. ...
05:19 PM, Oct 10, 2012
Chandigarh: Former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala has backed Khap Panchayat leaders' bizarre solution for rape. Chautala also compared the rapes in Haryana to Mughal atrocities. He said that in the Mughal era, people used to marry their girls to save them from Mughal atrocities and currently a similar situation is arising in the state. "I completely support the Khap Panchayat's decision. It is a good way to protect...
03:17 PM, Oct 10, 2012
Following the gangrape of a teenaged Dalit girl in Jind, who went on to commit suicide, a khap member in Haryana seemed to blame the victims for the rape. Speaking to a CNN-IBN reporter, khap panchayat member Sube Singh said that the only solution to rapes was to get girls married at the age of 16. His explanation for how it would prevent rapes was equally bizarre. He said that ...
03:30 PM, Oct 08, 2012
Lahore: A woman in the eastern Pakistani city has been arrested for forcing her 11-year-old daughter to marry a man in his 40s. Muhammad Niaz, resident of the thickly populated Ghorey Shah neighbourhood in Lahore called police on Saturday and complained that his wife Tasleem Kausar was trying to forcibly marry their daughter Farzana with a neighbour. "The girl is reluctant to marry but her mother is insisting on the...
11:56 AM, Sep 16, 2012
Jaipur: A 20-year-old woman in Rajasthan's Barmer district has requested the authorities to annul her marriage which was solemnised when she was only two years old, police said on Saturday. She also sought protection from the members of a village community council who, she says, are threatening her with serious consequences if she did not accept her childhood marriage, they added. According to police, the woman, Sonia Kumari is a...
01:05 AM, Aug 05, 2012
New Delhi: Yet again confirming the prevalence of child marriages in India, a new health survey has revealed that more boys than girls are getting married before the legal age of 21 years. The survey has also revealed that every fourth girl marrying in rural Rajasthan and every fifth in Bihar and Jharkhand are below the legal age of 18 years. The Mean age at marriage of females varies from...
05:14 PM, Jul 16, 2012
London: Policies that promote gender equality, safeguards against violence and exploitation and access to healthcare make Canada the best place to be a woman among the world's biggest economies, a global poll of experts showed on Wednesday. Infanticide, child marriage and slavery make India the worst, the same poll concluded. Germany, Britain, Australia and France rounded out the top five countries out of the Group of 20 in a perceptions...
12:11 PM, Jun 13, 2012
Kabul: The in-laws of a child bride who became the bruised and bloodied face of women's rights in Afghanistan have been sentenced to 10 years in prison for torture, abuse and human rights violations. The plight of 15-year-old Sahar Gul captivated the nation and set off a storm of international condemnation when it came to light in late December. Gul's husband's father, mother and sister were each sentenced to 10...
04:54 PM, May 06, 2012
New Delhi: Taking a serious view of child marriages in the country, the UPA government has decided to hold a national consultation on the issue with the states. A core group has been constituted by the women and child development ministry to organise the first national consultation this year to prevent child marriages, a ministry official said. "National consultation will be held soon. A core group has already been constituted...
06:27 PM, Apr 29, 2012
Jaipur: Yet another teenager has stood up against child marriage in Rajasthan. In Dausa, an eleventh standard student has refused to accept her marriage that took place years ago when she was a little girl. This comes less than a week after 17-year-old Lakshmi from Jodhpur also got her marriage annulled for the same reason. It's a tough battle against her own people but 16-year-old Prem Saini from Dausa has...
07:41 AM, Apr 27, 2012
A UNICEF report on adolescents (between 10 and 19 years of age) titled 'Progress for Children' has revealed that nearly one out of every three girls in countries like India and Pakistan are likely to be married. South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa has the highest percentage of adolescent married girls. Secondary school enrolment among adolescents is between 50 and 60 per cent in India. India figures in the lowest rung...
07:26 PM, Apr 25, 2012
Jaipur: In Rajasthan child marriages continue to be a rampant practice. But 17-year-old Lakshmi has just stepped out of what seemed like a nightmare. Lakshmi was told only weeks back that she was married off when she was two years old and now she must go to her husband's home. But she has sought the help of social workers to have her illegal marriage annulled. She wants to study, and...
06:41 AM, Apr 25, 2012
Kota: At least 12 government officials were injured after a group of villagers allegedly assaulted and pelted stones at them when they tried to stop them from carrying out child marriages in Rajasthan's Jhalawar district. On a tip-off that about 42 couples - most of them reportedly minors - were being married off in a mass ceremony, a team of district administration and police officers rushed to Prithvepura village late...
09:43 AM, Apr 23, 2012
New Delhi: Fifteen-year-old Sangita Bauri never feared her parents and society when she opposed her forcible marriage in a remote village in West Bengal but she trembled when she was honoured in New Delhi by President Pratibha Patil for her feat. Bauri along with two other young girls- Mukti Majhi, Sangita Bauri, Sunita Mahato, Afsana Khatun- met Patil on Wednesday after they were called by the President hearing the tale...
02:28 AM, Dec 08, 2011
