Journey from Prohibition of Child Marriage to Marriage of Both Sexes at the Same Age

 Prohibition of Child Marriage Act (PCMA)was introduced in year 2006. But still Child Marriages are in practices continuously.

Let's have a look at some reports and statics that shows the seriousness of Child Marriages and their terrific impacts..

1) National Family Health Survey 4: One in four girls in India was being  married before 18 and around 8% of them aged between 15-19 years were mother or pregnant.

2) United Nations Children's Fund : Each year 1.8million girls under 18 get married in India that makes India the country having one -third child bride of the world. 

NFHS 5 that shows present scenario also do not show any substantial improvements.

There are some most appropriate reasons that responsible for Child Marriage.....

A belief that girl need to marry early for safty and protection. Some parents consider the age period of 15-18 as unproductive especially for girls and also underaged girls are more prone to child marriage than boys.

Child marriages often occurred due to variety of reasons including Poverty, Insecurity, Political and Financial  reasons, Lack of Education, Patriarchy and  Gender Inequalities and one of the most important reason Indequate implementation of the Law.

The summary of these reports and reasons is that the only implementation of laws is not sufficient to overcome from such types of orthodox traditions and social evils  . Because at the end , whatever is fueling child marriages there is no doubt that it harms the physical and mental well-being of especially girls.

Besides this, Now a days one more flaming issue that is of raising the legal age of marriage  of women from 18to 21years is in the air, also Union Cabinet gives nod to raise women's marriage age to 21. Before going to any conclusion let's see the present scenario..

According to SBI recent report:35%of female in India are married before the age of 21years.

Considering the data on maternal deaths, the maximum proportion of maternal deaths occur in the lower age bracket.

According to Global Childhood Report : In India even today child marriage prevalence is higher in rural areas (14.1%) as compared to urban areas(6.9%)  for age group of 15-19years.

Pros of Increasing Marriageable Age .

There is a enormous benefits on social and economic fronts including:  

Lowering the Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) 

Improvement of nutrition levels

Financial front opportunities will be opened up for women to pursue higher education and careers and become financially empowered ,thus resulting in a more egalitarian society.

Because of maternity leaves often women  being the victim of Glass  Ceiling Effect , but if they will get more years then surely they achieve more opportunities.

Increasing the marriage age will push the mean marriage age higher and will lead to more females doing graduation.

Both women and men will gain economically and socially by marrying when they are more than the legal age,but added the urge of the women is much higher as they always get a higher payoff by becoming financially empowered to take decisions.

As we see , Protection of Child Marriage Act, Dowry Prohibition Act,   Law against Domestic Violence are implemented a decade ago and are in inforcement but still these evils are in practices openly especially remote area . So I mean to say only Laws can't tackle these sociao and stereotype issues . For a change , if we really want to  throw out such evils we need to collaborate with government and   as a fundamental duty start from you .. "Because we makes Society not Society makes us ".