In Tamil Nadu, child marriages are going on even now
Posted on: 16/Aug/2018 9:58:07 AM
The minimum age or right age for a boy to marry is 21 years and for a girl is 18 years in India. Any marriage before these mentioned age limits for boys and girls is illegal as per the law. The shocking piece of news that has come out now is child marriages are still taking place in the state of Tamil Nadu. According to the data from Southern Regional Research Centre, Child line India Foundation or CIF as many as 2807 child marriages during 2017-18 (from April month to March month) and during 2015-16 as many as 940 child marriages were reported. In the last 3 years the districts of Salem, Theni, Dindigul, Namakkal and Dharmapuri grabbed the attention of many as many child marriages took place in these above mentioned districts. In 2015-16, Chennai reported 59 child marriages and in 2017-18 Chennai reported 38 child marriages.
As per the data it is now revealed that during 2017-18 as many as 2807 child marriages took place. The child welfare officers played their part and intervened in around 2711 child marriages and as many as 1989 child marriages were stopped.
Head, Southern Regional Resource Centre, Child line India foundation, Anuradha Vidyashankar, expressed her thoughts and spoke about how there is greater awareness on the child marriages now when compared to the past. She then spoke about how the 1098 child helpline is flooded with many calls. Then she highlighted how after receiving the calls regarding child marriages the information was sent to the concerned district level officials and weddings were stopped once when the girl was found to be a minor after verification. Many programmes were conducted regularly to prevent child marriages.
An official belonging to CIF explained that these days more calls are got from the minor girls themselves who inform about their friends early marriages. The awareness regarding child marriages have reached out to the students now. He also cited an example of a girl student of class eleven whose marriage was stopped. CIF played a huge role in this by alerting school management and the officials. It is now brought out that some parents take their minor daughters to places like Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur for wedding.
