When children marry

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, Feb 19, 2012http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Kalpana_Sharma/article2906570.ece?homepage=true

Count up to three. By then, another young girl would have been forced into marriage somewhere in the world. Yes, forced child marriage is a reality not just in India but also in many countries around the world. In fact, India is one amongst 13 nations worldwide with some of the highest prevalence of child marriage.

Yet, this is a problem that appears almost intractable. It is also an issue that is often forgotten or overlooked even as we discuss women's rights, children's rights or the health and nutrition problems of girls and boys.

Still high

Latest data reveals that although there has been a decline in the prevalence of child marriage in India, seven out of every 100 women getting married are under the legal age of 18. This is happening despite a law banning child marriage dating as far back as 1929 with subsequent amendments in 1949 and 1978. And the passage of a comprehensive Prohibition of Child Marriage Act in 2006. In fact, the National Family Health Survey 2005-06 revealed that 44.5 per cent of women between the ages of 20-24 years had been married before they turned 18.

The prevalence of child marriage is a worry for obvious reasons. First, it results in girls being pulled out of school. Guaranteeing all children the Right to Education has no meaning when these girls are left with no choice.

Second, if girls get married so young, their bodies are not ready to bear children. These underage mothers are most at risk of dying during childbirth, thus contributing to the already unacceptably high maternal mortality rate in this country.

Third, these girls are also at risk of having multiple pregnancies. Most of them are poor, illiterate, and not aware of reproductive health or their right to decide when and how many children to have. Given their young age, they are powerless in their marital homes. This takes a huge toll on their health and that of their children.

According to Plan UK, a non-governmental organisation working on the rights of girls, an estimated 10 million girls are forced into marriage worldwide each year. This, according to their report, “Breaking Vows, Early and Forced Marriage and Girls' Education” works out to a horrifying 27,397 girls a day, 19 every minute and one every three seconds.

In all the countries where this practice occurs, implementing laws, if at all they exist, is difficult because child marriage is wrapped up in tradition. Therefore, people will not question it. It is also entangled in poverty. Families with no hope of overcoming their economic plight feel compelled to send their girls off so that they have one less mouth to feed.

After a natural disaster, that last justification becomes even more acute. In Kenya, for instance, Plan UK noted the prevalence of ‘famine brides' during a time of acute famine and food shortages. After the 2004 Asian tsunami, in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and even India, there were instances of young girls being compelled to marry ‘tsunami widowers'. In Indonesia, people living in camps for the tsunami displaced thought it was safer to marry their young daughters even to older men rather than risk their getting raped.

Another interesting point that emerges from several studies on the prevalence of child marriage is that it is higher where the laws on age of consent are unequal. For instance, in India, where the prevalence is an estimated 47 per cent, the age of consent is lower for women (18) and higher for men (21). Is there any justification for this discrepancy? Why should it not be the same age of consent for men and women? After all, when it comes to other laws, such as child labour for instance, there is no difference between girls and boys with regard to the age at which they can be legally employed.

Role of education

No one will argue that the custom of child marriage, in India or elsewhere, is a hugely complex issue and that there are no easy solutions. Clearly, a law banning the practice is not enough. It has to be coupled with efforts to make sure girls enroll in schools and stay there. If the prevalence is declining in India, this could be one of the reasons.

There are many other steps. But I would suggest that at a time when the media has become omnipresent, intruding into areas of our lives that many would prefer to keep private, this is a legitimate area into which it can intrude, investigate and focus. It can also pester lawmakers and law enforcers about the lax implementation of the law, another major reason for the continuing prevalence of child marriage. If you shine a bright light into a dark corner, you might not scare away the problem, but you will at least see that it is there.

(To read the original, click on the link above)

Burn dowry, not women

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine

OPINION » COLUMNS » KALPANA SHARMA

February 4, 2012

  

The HinduUp for sale?: Activists dressed as grooms campaign against dowry. Photo: Paul Noronha

Dowry has not disappeared, just morphed. And women continue to pay the price.

In a season where every other person seems to be taking offence at something or the other, let me add what offends me. I was deeply offended and hurt when I read the following headline: “One bride burnt every hour”. No, this is not a headline from a newspaper of the 1980s but from Sunday, January 29, 2012. The women the headline writes about are killed for not bringing in enough dowry. Yes, indeed, the giving, taking and killing for dowry is still alive and kicking in “Incredible India”.

According to data of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), there were 8,391 reported cases of dowry deaths in 2010. That is just under double the number of cases registered in 1995 — 4,648 cases. Statistics tell a story, but not the whole story. For every dowry death reported, there must be dozens that go unreported. Of the 8,391 reported cases in 2010, although 93.2 per cent were charge-sheeted, the conviction rate was a miserable 33.6 per cent.

Despite a 1989 amendment to Section 304B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), shifting the burden of proof to the husband and his family, the process of getting a conviction remains fraught because of loopholes in the law and the inability of the victim's family to establish the link between dowry demands and the death. Often, it is impossible to take the dying declaration, as the victim is barely alive. Even when it is taken, the police handling is shoddy and careless, allowing a clever defence to tear it apart during trial.

The official figures of dowry deaths are obviously just the tip of the iceberg. A truer picture would emerge if we added the cases of young married women registered as having committed suicide as well as cases filed under Section 498A of the IPC dealing with harassment from husband and relatives. In the NCRB crime data, there were 94,041 cases filed under 498A in 2010, up from 28,579 in 1995. There has been considerable controversy around 498A with some organisation, comprising apparently aggrieved husbands, claiming that women were misusing it to harass and blackmail their husbands. But even if there are a few cases of this kind, surely over 94,000 cases cannot all be false.

If further proof were needed of the prevalence of dowry, one only has to look at the sex ratio in this country. Why are girls not wanted?

Still bought and sold

The fact remains that despite changes in the law, growing awareness of it, more education, more economic progress, women are bought and sold for a price under the institution of marriage. In the 1980s, at the height of the campaign against dowry, one read of brave young women who rejected proposals when asked for a dowry. Women's group demonstrated outside marriage halls where dowry was given. There was much writing in the media against the custom. Today we don't hear about it. Does that mean it has vanished? Or has it become so entrenched that no one thinks it is worth talking about?

I did a random sampling of one matrimonial page in one Mumbai newspaper last Sunday. Of the 127 advertisements for “brides wanted”, listed neatly in caste categories, I found 16 that stated specifically “Caste no bar” and only four that said “No Dowry”. All the other advertisements went into details of the caste, the height, the looks etc of the bride they were looking for — “tall, beautiful, educated, cultured girl” stated one, for a “Kayastha, handsome, bachelor, doctor and managing director”.

One-way street

Dowry has not disappeared. It has morphed. Seema Sirohi, in her interesting and relevant book Sita's Curse, Stories of Dowry Victims (HarperCollins, 2003), gives this humorous yet apt description of dowry as it has come to be today: Dowry has become a bribe paid to a husband to keep the bride's body and soul together. A woman is a mere conduit to a ‘good' dowry — the definition of good being flexible and expandable. The boys are on sale and there are few discounts in the marriage market. There is no ‘buy one, get one free' here. It is a transaction weighted against the woman. In fact, it is a sale where even after the price is paid, satisfaction is not guaranteed. And ironically, the sale is never complete with marriage — the buyer is expected to keep paying in cash and in kind during festivals, to celebrate childbirth and to mark ritualistic occasions. Any excuse is good enough to keep the one-way street laden and moving with gifts.

Touchy as we Indians are about a whole host of things, the fact that women are still being burned for dowry in modern-day India should enrage us. Why are we accepting of this outrage, this insult to the sensibilities of all women? We should be burning dowry, not women.

(To read the original, click on the link above)