Raising the age of marriage will only criminalise and not prevent – early marriages
Posted on December 17, 2021
Brief from Young Voices National Network opposing the increase of legal age of marriage for women to 21 years
Context
According to media reports the Cabinet has cleared the proposal by Niti Ayog to raise the minimum age of marriage from 18 years to 21 years and bring amendments to the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act (2006) in Parliament in the winter session.
We organised consultations with 60 civil society organisations and experts with extensive experience in research and advocacy on adolescents, young people, child rights and women’s rights from the length and breadth of the country as soon as the formation of the Task Force was confirmed by a government order. This consultationled to submission of a Memorandum[1]to the Task Force by representatives of the civil society group both over mail and in person providing cogent reasons why we need to question the intention of the government to rise the legal age of marriage of women to 21 years. During this consultation, it was expressed by majority that it was critical to consult young people who would be impacted the most by this proposed change. The ‘Young Voices’ national process compiled the views of 2500 young people from 15 states facilitated by 96organisationsacross the country.The report[2] produced by the ‘Young Voices’ was submitted to the Task Force and children and young people from across the country, several of whom were married or fighting to stall their marriage, spoke to the Task Force. These young people pointed out with ground level experiences that amending the law by fiat will not further gender equality, women’s rights or empower girls, and will do little to improve the health of mothers and infants.
Key Issues raised by the Memorandum submitted to the Task Force against raising the legal age of marriage to 21 years
- Raising the age of marriage will only criminalise – not prevent child and early marriages.
- Child marriage has already given way to late adolescent marriage
- Early marriage is the consequence – not the cause – of girls dropping out of school.
- Early marriage does not cause high fertility rates.
- Poverty – not early marriage – is the main cause of the ill health of mothers and their children.
- Other policies are far more relevant for helping to prevent early marriages.
- Reproductive health, contraceptive and abortion access for all women are needed more than ever, especially during the Covid Pandemic.
- More attention needs to be paid to Gender Biased Sex Selection and Excess Female Mortality
There was a press conference held and media covered the point of view expressed by the young people extensively in several languages. Youth leaders identified through this process have been part of many meetings and events where they have raised their voice against increasing the minimum age of marriage to 21 years. In the deposition before the Task Force and also the press conference the young people and civil society organisations have made the following points emphatically.
Key Recommendations by the Young Voices to prevent child, early and forced marriages
- Right to choice and self-determination must be acknowledged and enabled in policy and legal frameworks.
- Young people should be mandatorily consulted on issues which affect them the most
- Recognize and address the root causes of early and child marriage as poverty, norms around centrality of marriage, patriarchy and control over girls’ sexuality.
- Our personhood and agency should be respected and valued.
- Engage with young boys and men to challenge and change gender based patriarchal norms.
- Create Incentives (quality education, secure jobs, information and access to sanitary napkins, contraceptives and safe abortions) that enable us to realize our aspirations (including delay in our age of marriage).
- Conduct mass awareness drives with our parents and community leaders to encourage them to discuss our issues and respect our decisions.
- Increase the Right to Education from Grade 8 to Grade 12 up to 18 years, and provide free, compulsory and quality education, especially for girls.
- Expand our opportunities for higher education (with free education or scholarships), vocational education available close to residential areas, which respond to our diversity and marginalized contexts.
- Create viable work opportunities that are safe and provide decent and stable income near homes and villages.
- Provide life skills and opportunities to practice decision making from childhood.
- Ensure our access to Comprehensive Sexuality Education in schools and in communities and guarantee sexual and reproductive health and rights.
- Ensure non-judgmental community-based and institutional protection mechanisms, which do not criminalize us.
- Ensure prevention of gender-based violence.
- Provide social and financial support for parents so that those of us who are vulnerable to child marriage may get more years of school to delay early marriage
- Create empowering spaces for us, with us.
- Increase our mobility, especially for girls, with safe and free public transportation.
- Create awareness about rights & entitlements, and laws that are related to children and young
- Build capacities to enhance confidence, skill sets, education levels and employability of the youth
- Entitlements should be available to all of us without conditionality and judgement whomever or whenever we choose to marry, whether or not we choose to marry.
Conclusion
Why Law is Not the Answer
While child marriage is a reality, it is important to recognise that the proportion of girls marrying below 18 years has been declining very significantly in recent decades, and there are indications that it may continue its fall. While 23% of women in the age group 20-24 years, according to the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS 5 2019-21)[3], married below 18 years, as many as 56% out of this group marry before 21 years and this is an underestimate.
How is increasing the minimum age of marriage a step forward when it denies many more women matrimonial status and rights, even as they continue to be compelled by poverty into marriage? How will it help to criminalise families whose survival needs and insecurity compel them to not just marry early, but to also enter the workforce early? Across the world, 18 years is the norm –– as the minimum age for marriage for both women and men. A child in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), ratified by India in 1992, defines a child as a person up to the age of 18 years. It is only in the most superficial sense that having 21 years for both men and women is a sign of gender equality, but somehow this idea has great appeal in liberal circles. If legal equality should be implemented in the letter when it comes to age, it may be worth considering making it 18 years for both men and women, as is the case in most parts of the world.
Today there is growing evidence that early marriage is the consequence of older girls dropping out of school and lacking viable employment opportunities– it does not cause dropouts. According to several studies, it is the failures and shortcomings of our education system that are prompting our youth – both boys and girls – to drop out. Nor does early marriage cause high fertility; in fact, fertility rates have been dropping to below replacement levels in most Indian states including those with relatively high prevalence of early marriage. Poverty – not early marriage – is the main cause of the ill-health of mothers and their new- born.
Raising the age at marriage through law will only criminalise – not prevent – early marriage. Over the last few years there have been moves to make laws more and more punitive as if all the answers can be achieved through legal change. Merely having a new minimum age of marriage law for women at 21 years without the presence of enabling opportunities in the form of access to higher education and decent job opportunities translates effectively into young women being even more trapped in their natal homes. Parents in situations of disadvantage will feel constrained to marry them off by any means possible rather than wait till the age of 21 when dowry and marriage expenses would leave them debt ridden.
Other policies are much more relevant for discouraging early marriage or for improving the health outcomes of mothers and their children. Strengthening schooling from pre-school to higher secondary as a bridge to higher education is absolutely vital, along with job guarantees and learn while you earn opportunities for adolescents, especially for those from marginalised sections. Reinforcing nutritional programmes in anganwadis and schools to address nutritional deficit among adolescents, especially girls, widening access to reproductive health, contraception, and abortion services for all, including preventing unsafe abortion and medical practices.
Government must invest adequately to sustain a large-enough cadre of well-trained and adequately paid ASHA and anganwadi workers. Excess female mortality and gender biased sex selection (where the latter bears no relation to early marriage) are crying out for state attention.
In sum, there is no benefit from fixing a law that is not broken, whereas substantial gains will flow from a focus on empowerment rather than age.
[1]Revised on 17 December 2020
[2]https://www.concernedforworkingchildren.org/news/2020/07/young-voices-national-report-15-states-nearly-2500-young-people-submission-to-the-task-force-examining-age-of-marriage-and-other-concerns-july-2020/
[3] National Family Health Survey Data(NFHS) V -2019 – 2021 – Published by GOI
