A recent data analysis spanning 265 districts across 17 states and union territories has unveiled significant insights into the occurrence of child marriages in India. According to the data, a coalition of civil society organizations successfully prevented a total of 9,551 marriages through legal interventions. Nearly 60 percent of these cases involved girls aged between 15 and 18 years old, highlighting the vulnerability of adolescent girls to early marriages.
Furthermore, the analysis reveals the alarming vulnerability of even younger girls, with 26 percent of the prevented marriages involving girls aged 10 to 14, and a small percentage of cases (0.6 percent) concerning girls under the age of 9. Bihar emerges as the state with the highest incidence of prevented child marriages, accounting for 31 percent of the cases, followed by West Bengal with 11 percent and Jharkhand with 10 percent.
The findings are detailed in a research paper titled ‘Educate to End Child Marriage,’ which advocates for amending the Right to Education Act of 2009 to ensure free and compulsory education from classes 9 to 12. The paper underscores the correlation between female literacy rates and the prevalence of child marriage, drawing insights from the National Family Health Survey – 5. States with higher female literacy rates tend to exhibit lower rates of child marriage, with Kerala boasting a female literacy rate of 96 percent and a child marriage prevalence of 6 percent, followed by Mizoram with 93 percent literacy and low child marriage rates of 8 percent. Conversely, states like Bihar and Rajasthan, with lower female literacy rates of 61 percent and 64 percent, respectively, experience higher prevalence rates of child marriage at 41 percent and 25 percent, respectively.
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