Child marriage violates children’s rights and places them at high risk of violence, exploitation, and abuse. Child marriage affects both girls and boys, but it affects girls disproportionately.
The significant progress in the reduction of child marriages in India has contributed to a large extent to the global decrease in the prevalence of the practice. The decline may be the result of multiple factors such as increased literacy of mothers, better access to education for girls, strong legislation and migration from rural areas to urban centres. Increased rates of girls’ education, proactive government investments in adolescent girls, and strong public messaging around the illegality of child marriage and the harm it causes are also among the reasons for the shift.
Child marriage, a deeply rooted social norm, provides glaring evidence of widespread gender inequality and discrimination. It is the result of the interplay of economic and social forces. In communities where the practice is prevalent, marrying a girl as a child is part of a cluster of social norms and attitudes that reflect the low value accorded to the human rights of girls.
Child marriage negatively affects the Indian economy and can lead to an intergenerational cycle of poverty.
Girls and boys married as children more likely lack the skills, knowledge and job prospects needed to lift their families out of poverty and contribute to their country’s social and economic growth. Early marriage leads girls to have children earlier and more children over their lifetime, increasing economic burden on the household. The lack of adequate investments in many countries to end child marriage is likely due in part to the fact that the economic case for ending the practice has not yet been made forcefully.
As a result of norms assigning lower value to girls, as compared to boys, girls are perceived to have no alternative role other than to get married. And are expected to help with domestic chores and undertake household responsibilities in preparation for their marriage.
Evidence shows that critical game changers for adolescent girls’ empowerment include postponing marriage beyond the legal age, improving their health and nutritional status, supporting girls to transition to secondary school, and helping them develop marketable skills so that they can realize their economic potential and transition into healthy, productive and empowered adults.
UNICEF’s approach to ending child marriage in India recognizes the complex nature of the problem, and the socio-cultural and structural factors underpinning the practice. UNICEF India accomplished its ‘scale-up strategy’ to prevent child marriage and increase adolescent empowerment by working with government, partners and relevant stakeholders from the national level down to the district level. The most significant development has been the gradual shift from interventions that are small in scope and mainly sector-based to large scale district models on adolescent empowerment and reduction of child marriage which rely on existing large government programmes.
UNICEF and UNFPA have joined forces through a Global Programme to Accelerate Action to End Child Marriage, where for the first time existing strategies in areas such as health, education, child protection, nutrition and water and sanitation have been brought together to address child marriage in a holistic manner. The approach is to address child marriage through the entire lifecycle of a child especially by addressing persisting negative social norms which are key drivers for the high prevalence of child marriage in India. The programme works in partnership with governments, civil society organizations and young people themselves and adopt methods that have proven to work at scale.
At the global level, child marriage is included in Goal 5 “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls” under Target 5.3 “Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation”.
