“Child Marriage is a practice
that robs millions of girls of their childhood, their rights and
their dignity.” – Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Under the initiative of Vimukti wing and with the active support of
Ensemble Agissons, campaign against an early marriage was organized
with the collaboration of various Govt. Schools in the project area
in order to sensitize & mobilize the masses to stop and eradicate
child marriage by raising awareness of the girl’s right in the
community. The campaign was organized with the main objective of
bringing about changes in the pattern of thinking in minds of the
people towards the evil effects of child marriage and raising
awareness of the girl’s right in the community and also by focusing
on improving the access to quality education for girls, and also
educating the wider community about the social factors that enable
forced marriage to continue. The students took out rallies through
the main streets of the villages by holding placards and banners
bearing the message on the needs of protecting the rights, and
creating awareness on adverse impact of child marriage.
The students of Tadkal government primary school along with Vimukti
staff at a rally vowed to prevent child marriage, school dropouts,
dowry and other related issues. After taking part in the rally,
children parliament members took oath in continuing awareness among
the guardians and local people about the negative impacts of child
marriage, dowry and repression to resist these social curses for
building a better society.
There are three main effects caused by early marriage:
-
Girls who are married early tend
to drop-out of school – they are expected to stay at home to
look after their husband and in-laws.
-
Teenage girls have a greater risk
of complications during pregnancy and child birth and babies are
more likely to be underweight.
-
Girls do not tend to give birth in
hospitals because the JSY maternal health programme does not
cover girls under 18.
