India’s COVID-19 lockdown threatens efforts to stop spikes in child marriage

When the police knocked on the door as 15-year-old Muskaan prepared to head to the temple in their village in northern India, the bride-to-be was distraught. With a sick father and unemployed brother, Muskaan believed that getting married to a distant relative’s son would alleviate the financial burden on her family and offer a better future.Yet a tip-off to the authorities in June by local activists concerned about a spike in early marriages during India’s coronavirus lockdown led to Muskaan’s wedding being called off, while her parents were charged under child marriage legislation.

After the COVID-19 pandemic brought industry to a halt and shut schools in March, activists and officials in parts of India from the southern state of Tamil Nadu to western Maharashtra observed an unexpected trend: child marriages were on the rise. Before the outbreak, many early marriages revolved around public celebrations and huge dowries paid by the bride’s family. Yet India’s lockdown’s restrictions mean many jobless and struggling families are performing ceremonies on the cheap and forgoing payments as they seek to ease their economic hardship.

With schools closed and weddings taking place discreetly, officials fear that children – especially girls – are harder to reach, educate, and save from marriages that limit their future.Early marriage makes it more likely that girls will drop out of school, and campaigners say it also increases the risks of slavery, domestic and sexual violence, and death in childbirth.

Of 223 million women and girls in India who were married off as children, almost half were wed before turning 15, according to statistics by the United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF). UNICEF data from 2018 found that about 27% of girls get married before they turn 18, down from 47% a decade earlier. Yet advocates fear that progress may be at risk across rural India. India’s child protection commission said there was no data to suggest a spike in child marriages during lockdown, but it had asked state governments to be more vigilant to the threat.

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation