Kerala: Insecurity forces parents to marry off girls early

Thiruvananthapuram: Increasing incidents of female child abuse could be forcing parents to marry off their minor girls in the capital district. Incidents of reported child marriages have more than doubled this year in Thiruvananthapuram; from five cases last year, the number has gone up to 13 till September 17.

The usual reasons like the compulsions of tradition and poverty have been ruled out by the Social Justice Department. “Rather, we have found that there is increasing insecurity among parents we had spoken to,” said District Child Protection Officer Mr Subair K.K. “A feeling has somehow got ingrained that girls are better protected if they are married off as soon as possible,” he said, summing up the general feedback his team had received from the 13 families that had married off their girls before they had attained marriageable age.

Earlier, child marriages were associated with a particular community. In the capital district, 11 of the families that had given their minor girls in marriage are Hindus. Only two were Muslim families. The impact of primitive customs, too, was found to be nil. “Normally, it is in tribal areas that tradition plays a part in early marriages. But such marriages have not been reported from tribal areas of the district like Vellanad, Nedumangad, Palode, or Kattakada. Instead, these 13 cases were reported from more urban centres like Varkala, Kilimanoor and Nemom,” Mr Subair said. 

Four cases each were reported from Varkala and Kilimanoor. Demographic expert Anil Chandran S. explains why insecurity triggers the trend of child marriages. “National Crime Records Bureau statistics show that over 60 per cent of rape victims in the state are below 18 years. For the whole of India, rape victims below 18 is less than 40 per cent,” said Prof. Chandran, assistant professor of Department of Demography, University of Kerala.

“Further, parents are also constantly exposed to scary news reports of child sexual abuse in the media,” Prof. Chandran said. “Therefore, it is only natural for them to panic and marry off their child even while they are studying,” he said. Prof Chandran, however, said that early marriages had not led to girls dropping out of school. Mr Subair, however, terms as regressive this dependence on marriage as a protective mechanism. “It suggests that only a man can protect a female, and such a thinking rather than mitigating the problem will only complicate it,” he said.