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By: Saumil Ahuja, 2nd year School of law, Christ University, Bengaluru
Why is it in news?
The bill which was introduced in 17th Lok Sabha has now been lapsed. Its main aim was to bring uniformity in the marriage age of women and men. It had amended Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006. According to the act of 2006 the marriage age of women was set at 18 years. The bill to amend the act was introduced in December 2021 in the Lok Sabha and was referred to the Committee on Education, Women, Child, Youth and Sports. Over the period of time the committee received multiple extensions and to the extent that the bill has lapsed now. The bill if passed would have increased the marriage age of women to 21 years bring parity in the marriage ages of men and women.
Major recent trends in child marriage in India
There has been a lot of improvement when it comes to controlling the child marriages in India. Girl child marriages has experienced a exponential decline from 49% in 1993 to 22% in 2021. Boys child marriages has also experienced a decline from 7% in 2006 to just 2% in 2021. The decline in the child marriages of both the genders, especially the exponential decline in case of female child marriages has lead to a overall national decline. However, not to forget that it is not enough. There has been a increase in the child marriages between 2016 and 2021 in some of the states. There has been a total of 6 states where female child marriages have taken a rise. These are including Manipur, Punjab, Tripura, and West Bengal. Whereas in case of boy child marriages 8 states have experiences a rise including Chhattisgarh, goa, Manipur and Punjab. To make it worse, covid 19 pandemic has not forgot to give its contribution. With the increase in the global child marriages, India is no exception. There has been an increase of 50% increase in the child marriages in 2020. According to National Crime Records Bureau report 785 cases were registered in the pandemic year in 2020 under Prohibition of Child Marriage Act. In addition to it, the child marriages threat in future has also increased as 10 million more girls are at the risk over the decade.
Evolution of marriage laws in India.
In India, the child marriage was 1st prohibited in 1929 by passing the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929. According to this act, the minimum marriage age for females was 14 years and males was 18 years. There came the amendment of 1978 which increased the marriage age of women to 18 years and men to 21 years. Then the Child Marriage Prohibition Act, 2006 replaced the 1929 Act while keeping the minimum age limits same as 1976 amendment.
Highlights of the bill
How this bill was prepared:
The task force lead by Ms Jaya Jaitly was set up by the central government to study the relation between the marriage and motherhood and its impact on the health, nutritional status, medical well being and pregnancy issues. Moreover, the impact of following parameters like infant mortality rate, maternal mortality rate, sex ratio at birth, etc. the committee will also provide suggestion on how can higher education among women be promoted. The recommendation of the committee was to increase the legal marriage of women to 21 years. However, the report of committee cannot be assessed as it is not in public domain.
Objects and reasons for the bill
The new bill can help India improving its image when it comes to various goals and indicators. The state of objects and reasons include achieving goals like Maternal mortality rate, Infant mortality rate, nutrition rates, sex ratio and also improving the female labour force participation. Moreover, it will also help in achieving Sustainable Development Goals especially SDG5 which involves achieving Gender Equality.
Features
The bill amends the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 which will increase the marriage age of females to 21 years. In addition to it, the bill will enjoy supremacy over the laws, customs and traditions of any religion.
Moreover, under 2006 Act, the objection by the person married could have been filed till 20 years of age, that is 2 years after attaining the age of majority, but now the objection to the marriage and applying for the annulment can be done till the age of 23 years.
Merits
There has been support of significant no. of researches that signify that corroborate the decision to increase the marriage age of girls. The major factors according to such reports which can be improved by increasing the marriage age are:
- Health: it has been seen that girls who marry early are more prone to giving rise to infant and maternal mortality rate. The women who marry before 18 years of age are more prone to developing serious complications during pregnancy as compared to the women who are in their twenties according to WHO.
- Literacy and Education rates: because of the burden of child marriage the girls are forced to drop out early from the schools and colleges which hampers their education a lot. With the increase in marriage age the girls will be able to access more education.
- Economic independence: the women who are married early generally have very less education and because of that their earning capacity gets compromised and which in addition to it makes the husband family feel that the wife is a liability on their family and her family needs to pay dowry to the husband’s family for taking the responsibility of their daughter. Moreover, as they know that the wife cannot earn sufficient so the wife has to bear the domestic violence and other injustices as they know she does not have any other option. With the increase in marriage the education will be better and with that the earning capacity will also improve, thereby improving the conditions of women after marriage.
- Reducing gender inequalities: most of the times the child marriages usually results in increasing the gender inequalities as women most of the time are married to very older men compared to them and they are not able to take their important decisions in life. The aim of the aim is to enforce the existing child marriage laws in India. This is done through increasing the minimum marriage age, increasing the punishments for those involved in promoting the child marriages and making the registration of marriages mandatory and this will eventually result in protection the girls especially and also help in getting their rights assured.
Concerns and challenges:
- Firstly, the minimum age prescribed by the act is 21 years while it is more than the age of majority. The hon’ble supreme court has ruled that marriage between the adults is a fundamental right and therefore it poses a problem to the constitutionality of the bill.
- Secondly, critics argue that despite the 1978 Amendment of the minimum age of marriage almost a quarter of women 20 to 24 yr old women are married before the age of majority. This raises questions whether this can help in reducing child marriages in India.
- Thirdly, as this bill will override any personal laws in the country so friction among the different communities with respect to marriage is possible. For example, in case of muslims marriage can be consummated after reaching the age of puberty.
Impact on the mindset of people
We all know that India represents male dominated society where daughters till date in many sections are considered as liability. So, even if the act is passed the mindset of the people will not change and daughters will have to bear the grudge from their parents and family of being extra burden on their family. This means that girls can face injustices and increase in domestic violence because of the grudge of not having laid off their daughter to other family as early as possible. In addition to it as the mindset of the people is concerned there will stillbe child marriages in a hidden manner.
Way Forward
As the bill has lapsed with dissolvement of 17th Lok Sabha, so there is a need to look as early as possible to the grave and serious matter of child marriages. Passing the act might not be sufficient, so there is a need to change the mindset of people. This can be done through education. Skill and business training has to be provided to girls so that they can be independent in their lives. Moreover, giving sex to both female as well as male is indispensable. The accessibility to schools also has to be increased to girl child. Last but not the least, this evil can be curtailed by spreading mass awareness through camps and awareness centres about the consequences of girls marrying early and what complications can it have on their health and other aspects of lives. Then only the act can have utility and enforceability and eventually being very helpful in curtailing the early marriages.
