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    • West Bengal has a problem with child marriage. It defies its own haloed history
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    West Bengal has a problem with child marriage. It defies its own haloed history

    Online Niel Posted on

    The Supreme Court has issued new guidelines against child marriage — a vexing issue for West Bengal, which still seems stuck in the past. The court directed that every district should appoint a Prohibition of Child Marriage Officer to keep a hawk eye to prevent such marriages. Similar rules have previously been formulated to address the problem that social scientists attribute to poverty, illiteracy and tradition. And while these efforts have had a national impact – child marriage in India has declined from 54.2% in 1992-93 to 23.3% in 2019-21, according to data from the National Family Health Survey – West Bengal has remained steady at around 41% cent, nestling with Bihar and Tripura as one of the worst performing states.

    West Bengal has a problem with child marriage. It defies its own haloed history.

    The state has everything to reverse the trend. Tradition, for starters. Remember Bengal was abolished sati about 200 years ago and introduced widow remarriage 25 years later. More recently, the state won accolades from UNICEF for its Kanyashree Prakalpa program – a cash transfer scheme to keep girls in school and prevent child marriage. However, young girls in Bengal are still getting married young.

    Read also: In SC guidelines to eliminate child marriage, district burden, legal action against negligent officials

    Child marriage, reimagined

    Bureaucrats, social scientists and confused economists notice, however, a glimmer of hope in a phenomenon that has not been officially tabulated, but is becoming more and more visible: self-initiated marriages. More and more girls are getting married even before their 18th birthday, in a way, asserting their right to choose their partner even if it means losing financial benefits from the state. Girls are not willing to wait until they turn 18 and risk their parents forcing them into marriage their the choice, not hers. Girls are rebelling, becoming assertive – and that’s something to celebrate, even if it destroys child marriage statistics in West Bengal.

    But what about education? The trend of self-initiated marriage at 18 has forced some social scientists to admit that education for education’s sake is not a sufficient incentive. Neither is stimulating education with money. Girls – and boys – who spend 18 years of their lives in school want valuable returns on this investment. But given the scarcity of jobs, I don’t find much to look forward to. So for girls, the next option is often: get married.

    In fact, three districts in West Bengal are identified as the worst performers on the child marriage front – Murshidabad, West Midnapore and East Midnapore. The irony is that East Midnapore ranks also have the highest literacy rate in the state. Clearly, literacy is not a reason for girls not to marry young. In fact, literacy could be the trigger that fuels their assertiveness and determination to choose their own mates, even if they are minors.

    Read also: WhatsApp helps activists stop child marriage in Maharashtra’s Beed

    Bengal, caught in a loop

    The problem they face is: who should they marry? Boys in West Bengal are dropping out of school at an alarming rate because almost all incentives are focused on girls, leaving boys out in the cold. So, in a crisis, if a family needs an extra pair of hands to earn money, the tendency is to take the boy out of school, not the girl. At least she contributes to the family purse by getting government subsidies, the boy doesn’t, so let’s put him to work.

    The result is that more girls than boys are taking the secondary examination in West Bengal, classrooms in girls’ schools are full, while boys’ schools are running out. This results in a generation of young men whose education is incomplete, who are deployed to earn money for the family through professional skills without the best prospects from an early age.

    Many boys are forced to leave home in search of work, often out of state. And when parents want to tie them to family and home, their solution is: marry him off. No parent wants to bahu to be more educated than his older son. So for their 18-year-old school dropout son, who is on the verge of becoming a migrant worker, they go on the hunt for a younger, less well-read bride. Net result? Another nail in the coffin of child marriage statistics in West Bengal.

    Welcome as they are, the Supreme Court’s latest directives on child marriage do not address the infinite socio-economic complexities that make India. Let us not even ask whether these rules supersede the personal laws of the various religious orders.

    The good news is that against the odds, child marriage rates have generally declined in India. States at the bottom of the list have made giant leaps forward. For West Bengal, the way forward must be to collaborate and adopt best practices from other states. the scourge of child marriage must disappear. West Bengal cannot afford to be left behind—its people deserve better.

    Monideepa Banerjie is a senior journalist based in Kolkata. She tweets @Monideepa62. Views are personal.

    (Edited by Prashant)

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