India

23% of girls in India marry before the age of 18 and 5% marry before the age of 15.

3% of boys marry before the age of 18.

India has the highest absolute number of women married or in a union before the age of 18 in the world – 222,400,000.

Child marriage is more prevalent in five states: Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. The highest rates of child marriage are found in Uttar Pradesh.

Child marriage is driven by gender inequality and the belief that girls are somehow inferior to boys.

In India, child marriage is also driven by:

● Harmful practices: Patriarchal social norms consider that married women and girls belong to their husband’s family and women are generally seen as an economic burden. Girls are expected to be adaptable, docile, hardworking and talented wives. Customary laws based on religion are a major barrier to ending child marriage in India.

● Control over girls’ sexuality: Until a daughter is married, her chastity is considered to be a marker of her father’s honour. This motivates men to marry off their daughters early. Social pressure to marry at puberty can be enormous within certain castes. Some girls are promised in marriage before they are born in order to “secure” their future. Once they reach puberty, gauna or “send-off” ceremonies take place and they are sent to their husband’s home to commence their married life.

● Adolescent pregnancy: For girls between the ages of 20 to 24, 84% of girls who were married before the age of 15 gave birth before the age of 20.

● Poverty: Child marriage is more common among poorer households, with many families marrying off their daughters to reduce their perceived economic burden. Girls are often married at a young age because less dowry is expected for younger brides. For girls between the ages of 20 to 24 years, 40% from the poorest household were married before the age of 18 years, in comparison to 8% of girls from the wealthiest households. 27% of girls from rural areas were married and 15% are from urban areas.

● Level of education: For girls between the ages of 20 to 24 years, 48% of girls married before the age of 18 years have no education, 43% have completed primary education and 19% have completed secondary or higher education. Many families consider girls to be paraya dhan (someone else’s wealth). This means that a girl’s productive capacities benefit her marital family, and educating daughters is therefore seen as less of a priority than educating sons, who are responsible for taking care of their biological parents in old age. Further, given a lack of jobs and employment opportunities, there is a low value for education, especially in rural areas where distance and low quality of education are active barriers to girls’ education beyond middle school.

● Household labour: Girls are often married at puberty when they are deemed most “productive” and can take care of children and conduct housework. The labour of young brides is central to some rural economies.

● Violence against girls: Some girls are married due to lack of safety and fear of violence against women and girls in public spaces, with many cases of violence against girls being reported every day. However, a 2014 study found that child brides in India are at greater risk of sexual and physical violence within their marital home.

● Poor law enforcement: There are persisting legal loopholes that fuel impunity for child marriage. There is also low awareness of the law and barriers to access justice for women and girls.

● COVID-19: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on some of the poorest households and has exacerbated the vulnerability of children. The pandemic exposed vulnerable families to loss of financial income, pushing them further into poverty and exclusion. School closures impacted 247 million children enrolled in primary and secondary education and 28 million children enrolled in pre-school in anganwadi centers.

India has committed to ending child, early and forced marriage by 2030 in line with target 5.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The government did not provide an update on progress towards this target during its Voluntary National Review at the 2017 and 2020 High Level Political Forum. The government has not submitted a Voluntary National Review in any High Level Political Forum since.

India acceded to the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1992, which the Committee on the Rights of the Child has interpreted to recommend the establishment of a minimum age of marriage of 18, and ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1993, which obligates states to ensure free and full consent to marriage.

In 2014 the CEDAW Committee raised concerns about high school dropout rates among young girls in India, making them particularly vulnerable to child marriage.

During its 2022 Universal Periodic Review, the government stated that they have taken several steps to address violence against women and girls. Operationally, the government has implemented the Pan-India Emergency Response Support System and One Stop Centres, which provide victims of violence with support. As of March 2022, the government has launched 708 operational centres and assisted over 540,000 women. The government has also established a 24/7 toll free helpline for women who are seeking support on sexual assault cases. Since its establishment, the helpline has been able to assist over 7 million women. In order to protect women on public transport, the government, alongside the Indian Railways, plans to install Internet Protocol based Video Surveillance Systems at stations. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) continues to implement the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006 and directs grassroots organizations and officers on preventative strategies to combat child marriage.

During its 2017 Universal Periodic Review, India agreed to consider recommendations to improve enforcement of legal provisions against child marriage.

India is a member of the South Asian Initiative to End Violence Against Children (SAIEVAC), which adopted a regional action plan to end child marriage from 2015-2018.

Representatives of the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), including India, asserted the Kathmandu Call to Action to End Child Marriage in Asia in 2014. As part of its commitment, India will ensure access to legal remedies for child brides and establish a uniform minimum legal age of marriage of 18. However as of 2020, the legal age for boys remains at 21 years.

In 2019, at the Nairobi Summit on ICPD25, India committed to address all forms of violence against all women and girls, but without mention of child marriage.

A National Action Plan to prevent child marriages was drafted by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in 2013, but it was shelved with the change of government in 2014. Key components included law enforcement, changing mindsets and social norms, empowering adolescents, quality education and sharing knowledge.

India is a focus country of the UNICEF-UNFPA Global Programme to Accelerate Action to End Child Marriage, a multi-donor, multi-stakeholder programme working across 12 countries over fifteen years.

The 2022 annual report of the Global Programme to end Child Marriage established:

6 million girls participated in life skills and comprehensive sexuality education.

84,000 girls who were at risk of child marriage were supported to enrol or remain in school through outreach programmes.

80 million community members were provided with information on combatting child marriage and promoting gender equality.

3.7 million boys and men were reached in dialogues on addressing harmful masculinities and promoting gender norms.

386 new partnerships were formed to deliver adolescent responsive social protection, poverty reduction and economic empowerment services.

181 district action plans to end child marriage were approved to be implemented in 10 states.

The Department for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in Odisha supported 1,150 tribal resident schools across 30 districts, reaching 146,498 marginalized girls to raise awareness on child marriage and adolescent pregnancy.

The School Education Department, the Women and Child Welfare Department, and Panchayats supported girls to re-enrol or remain in school or join second-chance education programmes.

80 million people were reached through social media platforms including radio and television, including the Mere Sapane (my dreams) national essay competition, the #EqualRightsEqualValue social media campaign and the International Day of the Girl Child campaign.

5 million girls were identified to be at risk and were referred to social protection schemes for psychosocial and mental health support.

Under the Adolescent Empowerment Programme (AEP) in Madhya Pradesh, a multisectoral district action plan was developed on child marriage and violence against children. The programme also supported the training of over 82,000 child protection workers.

UNICEF and UNFPA supported the National School Health and Wellness ‘Ambassadors’ Initiative (SHWAI) of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Ministry of Education to develop guidelines and teaching aids. The programme launched 56 interactive videos on 11 thematic areas: HIV prevention, emotional well-being and mental health, reproductive health, safety and security against violence and injuries, promotion of safe use of the internet and social media behaviour, gender equality, nutrition, health and sanitation, values and citizenship, prevention and management of substance misuse, promotion of healthy lifestyle and interpersonal relationships.

The flagship programme “Beti Bachao Beti Padhao”, launched by Honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, is a programme addressing gender-biased sex selective elimination, ensuring the survival and protection of the girl child and ensuring education and participation of the girl child. In 2019, the programme reached 80 districts, and 5.4 million girls and 2.4 million boys gained access to information on gender-responsive services and approaches to ending child marriage.

Due to its decentralised governance structure, in recent years there have been more initiatives at the state level with the development of action plans. While some states have taken limited action, Rajasthan, one of the states with the highest prevalence of child marriage, launched a Strategy and Action Plan for the Prevention of Child Marriage in March 2017 and a large-scale advocacy campaign.

In 2018, Jharkhand state developed a state action plan to end child marriage and Bihar state launched a Strategy and Action Plan for the Prevention of Child Marriage. As part of this, 101 public servants were trained as Child Marriage Prohibition Officers, and task forces were set up to increase awareness and reporting of cases of child marriage.

West Bengal also has a state plan of action for children, which includes child marriage. Other states, including Gujarat and Odisha, consolidated child protection schemes in 2018.

Previous governmental schemes have included cash incentives (such as the Dhan Laxmi scheme and the Apni beti apna dhun programme), adolescents’ empowerment programmes (Kishori Shakti Yojana) and awareness-raising to encourage behaviour change related to child marriage.

According to the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006 the minimum legal age of marriage in India is 18 years for girls with no exceptions. For boys, the legal age of marriage is 21.

There have been a number of court cases in recent years where petitioners have argued that the provisions of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act do not apply to Muslims as marriages between Muslims are governed by Muslim Personal Law under the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937. In 2017, the Supreme Court of India indicated that the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006 has priority over personal laws.