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Tears of child brides continue to flow
Despite relentless efforts by social activists and government officials, child marriages are still going on unabated in Khammam, a predominantly tribal district. The fact that since the beginning of this year a total of 14 child marriages have been foiled shows the enormity of the social malady prevailing in the district.
With officials foiling two child marriages in a Khammam village on Saturday, the total number of such marriages thwarted since the beginning of this year stands at 14, whereas the evil go unnoticed in tribal hamlets
Khammam: Despite relentless efforts by social activists and government officials, child marriages are still going on unabated in Khammam, a predominantly tribal district. The fact that since the beginning of this year a total of 14 child marriages have been foiled shows the enormity of the social malady prevailing in the district.
Since June 2014, the number of child marriages stopped by the District Women and Child Development Agency (DW&CDA) is 46. It appears that despite the government’s efforts to curb the menace of child marriages in the country, the rural areas in the district still have the highest incidence of child marriages. In fact, the undivided State of Andhra Pradesh was the fourth largest in the country to register child marriages.
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It may be mentioned here that the government had given more teeth to the existing Prohibition of Child Marriages Act 2006 to build pressure and sensitise people against child marriages. Special powers have been given to officials in charge for abolishing child marriages. They are the Collector at district level, RDO at the divisional level, Panchayat Secretary and the Village Administrative Officer (VAO) at the village-level.
All these efforts resulted in a change of the age of the children getting married. Earlier small children were married off, but now they are adolescents or teenagers, but still under the legal age of 18. On Saturday, Childline-1098 officials, led by the Child Development Project Officer (CDPO) L. Swarnalatha, foiled three child marriages at Burgampadu and Aswapuram mandals.
Acting on a tip-off, the officials rushed to Burgampadu and tried to stop two child marriages that were about to take place on Sunday. On Friday, the officials stopped a child marriage at Thirumalayapalem, 20 km from Khammam. The officials had to inform the police when the parents of both the girls, aged around 12, refused to listen to their counseling. The parents later agreed to cancel the marriages of their wards.
Later, the officials convinced the parents of another girl, who is studying SSC, who set their daughter’s marriage on Monday to cancel the ceremony. “The main reason behind the prevalence of the malady is traditional practice, illiteracy and poverty,” the ICDS project director D. Sukhajeevan Babu told The Hans India on Saturday. Though our officials have been vigilant, we need the support of people to curb the menace, he said, appealing to public to pass on the information of child marriages to them or by calling on Childline – 1098.
By:Adepu Mahender
