How girl groups, football are tackling child marriage

A group of parents watching their girls play football in Ajmer’s Mayo College beam with pride. These young women are associated with the NGO Mahila Jan Adhikar Samiti which uses football, theatre and community to empower girls to say no to child marriage. Indira Pancholi, its founder, says she saw tears in some eyes. “So many mothers said they never got these opportunities.” She cites the example of Maya, who was married at a young age but now has raised her voice against her gauna (a ceremony after which the girl is sent off to her husband’s house). Theatre and a course in grassroots journalism has lent her a sense of agency that allowed her to speak up. “Now her parents say that she can study as much as she wants,” says Pancholi.In a move that is a far cry from this strategy to educate and empower, Assam has arrested over 2,500 people in for child marriage. This action has also left activists divided with some welcoming this long-delayed focus on child marriage, while others question the methods used and the targeting of religious minorities.Ghasiram Panda, programme manager at ActionAid, sees these arrests as an incomplete measure. “The family is being affected mentally, psycho-socially and financially. Prosecution is not the only solution. The state is also accountable to create preventive steps,” he says. After all, child marriage stems from a confluence of factors, he points out. “Poverty, lack of educational facilities and Covid-induced economic disturbance are all major factors,” he says. The fear that some are hoping it will strike in the hearts of communities is not going to function as a deterrent, he adds, just as it hasn’t in cases of child sexual abuse, despite POCSO having drastic penalty provisions.However, child rights activist Kriti Bharti, has been working on preventing and annulling child marriages, supports the strengthening of penal provisions, though she has concerns about the arrests in older cases. “Somewhere we need to instil fear. What happens is that child marriage rarely gets reported, and if it does, law enforcement goes to the family and explains it to them,” she says.Rajasthan-based activist Vijay Goyal says that stakeholders have not been protected. “Whether it’s anganwadi karyakartas or school teachers, the people whose responsibility it is to report to the government are not given the safety they need. Their identities are not protected,” he says. He hopes the mass arrests in Assam can show people that there will be consequences.Medium108406644 But organisations like ActionAid point that without alleviating the social and economic conditions that enable child marriage to thrive, nothing will change. Their multi-pronged interventions in Odisha are an example of an alternate way forward. Along with Unicef, they have brought together traditional leaders from 29 castes, tribes, and religious groups to learn about the negative impact of child marriage and existing legislations for prohibition. They have now engaged leaders from 15 districts who advocate for ending child marriage in their communities, and over the coming year, 10 more districts will be engaged. Following a pilot programme in Nabarangpur, 29 different caste communities have adopted the resolution in their respective communities not to solemnise any child marriage.Additionally, they focus on empowering adolescents themselves. A district-level forum for adolescents called the Balya Bibah Pratirodh Manch enables young people to take up this issue within their own communities. “Along with a peer of mine, I have been able to convince parents and adolescent girls during home visits about the harmful effects of child marriage. I also tell them about the penalty of one lakh rupees and two years of jail if found guilty of child marriage,” says Geeta Desinayak, an adolescent girl from Lankagada village.Bharti Ali, co-founder and executive director of HAQ: Centre for Child Rights, believes in the same approach. “Initiate programs around behaviour change communications, strengthen education and outreach, set up adolescent girl and boy groups and strengthen village and block-level Child Protection Committees,” she says. “We know that the law is not enough. There is such resistance from communities — and I am not talking only about Muslims, but largely Hindu communities. In MP, an anganwadi workers’ hand was cut off because she was spreading awareness.”In Assam itself, the women and families impacted have been reaching out to child rights NGO Utsah. Its founder Miguel Das says that he sees the good and bad of this move — they have struggled to get the police to respond to cases of child marriage for years, but they are also seeing the vulnerability of women impacted.He hopes that this attention on child marriage in Assam will lead to more conversations about prevention. Though as the lives of girls and women are impacted, with many pregnant or left to care for young children, it is easy to wonder if conversation should have preceded action.