Why Assam is fighting the wrong war for its girls | Guwahati News

Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is waging a 'war' against child marriages but before he goes any further, he needs an urgent class on how to read data. His argument is that he is trying to address the important issues of infant and maternal mortality, but there is a set or readily available statistics that he should focus on instead.Yes, Assam has a high percentage of India’s child brides but if he had studied the data carefully, Sarma would’ve known that there has been a slow, if not ideal, improvement. The National Family Health Survey data captures the decline: from 38.6% in 2005-06, to 33.7% in 2015-16, to 31.8% in 2019-20.The numbers are still high and Assam’s proportion of underage mothers and pregnant girls is 11.7% when compared to the national average of 6.8%.Child marriages are against the law but Sarma’s self-declared war could instead have focused on another set of statistics. The 'war' would then have been meaningful, for it could have helped focus on the root causes. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(e){if(void 0!==e.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var a in e.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r Assam has actually performed poorly on several indices of women’s empowerment. The state also lags behind the national average on the important issue of child deliveries in health care facilities.It is politics and not concern for womenHere are some statistics that Sarma ought to have paid attention to: More than 20% of women aged between 15 and 19 have never set foot in a school. Instead, they have become teenage mothers. Education is an important index and Assam’s data points to that: only 4% of women who were able to study for at least 12 years, have gone on to become mothers.If Sarma had focussed on the right data set, Assam’s many families would have been spared the pain its child brides are now undergoing. Instead, the drive against teenage brides has come at a great emotional cost.Thousands of families have been torn apart in the last few weeks as the police try and hunt down husbands of child brides and teen mothers. Thousands have also been made vulnerable as the police look for — what Sarma called — “imams and pujaris”.The crackdown continues amid allegations that it is aimed largely against Muslim and Adivasi families. Despite denials from Sarma and his police force, the one thing that is clear is that Assam’s teenage girls are undergoing a second victimisation.Poverty, patriarchy and the lack of education forced them into marriage and made them victims. The mass arrest of their husbands is victimising them again and putting them at grave emotional and physical risk. medium98057050The visuals of teenage brides crying outside Assam’s police stations are very disturbing. As are reports that at least two such brides, unable to deal with the arrest of their husbands, have died by suicide. Several teenagers, in the last trimester of their pregnancies, are now too scared to access the healthcare system.Medical practitioners have spoken up about the unfolding tragedy in Assam. What these doctors are now openly saying, point to disturbing trends. One, that pregnant girls have approached them for abortions. Two, many pregnant women have just stopped showing up at district clinics for pre-booked appointments. The appointments include pre-natal checks and vaccinations.How can Sarma justify his war? He may be on the right side of law but is that the only answer to this deep-rooted social evil?The Assam government is using two laws to control child marriages. Arrests are being made under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act. Over 4,000, including women, are now being held in detention centres.The mindless application of the law — it is also being applied retrospectively — has taken away the earning member of families who could be jailed for two to 20 years and pay a fine of Rs 1 lakh? Can the families really afford this?Sarma has already told us he has “zero sympathy”. He believes the crackdown has a purpose; that to save lakhs of girls in the future, one generation will have to suffer."Sympathy Not For Cops To Give": Himanta Sarma On Child Marriage Crackdown https://t.co/dEWep43Fdz https://t.co/U9pJWQ2cdk— NDTV (@ndtv) 1675793778000Sarma’s 'deterrence' theory is flawed. Assam’s girls did not choose to become child brides. The only way to make them opt out of the practice is for the state to wage a war on the education front. The Gauhati high court too has weighed in on the issue and questioned the need for “custodial interrogation.”Sarma could draw lessons from other states. West Bengal, Assam’s neighbour, for example, has a flagship programme called Kanyashree Prakalpa through which it provides financial aid to girls wanting higher education. Tripura and Bihar provide free bicycles for school-going girls.Instead of terrorising families, Sarma should urge his bureaucrats to frame policies that incentivise the fight against child marriage. Till he does that, he leaves himself open to questioning, especially because he has asserted that the crackdown will continue until 2026, when elections are due.Really, what do elections have to do with child brides? Don’t politicise it please.Read more from the author here