28 per cent girls in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana married off before 18: study

New Delhi: Twenty eight per cent girls in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana were married off before the age of 18 and 59 per cent of them gave birth to their first child by the age of 19, a study said today.

The study, titled 'Young Lives' which interviewed 1,000 children (500 girls and 500 boys) at the age of 19 years in the two states, found that girls who had left school by the age of 15 years were four times more likely to get married before turning 18 than those who continued schooling after 15. "28 per cent of girls in the age group of 8-19 years were married before the age of 18. Only 1 per cent of boys had married before 18 years.”

"59 per cent of married girls had given birth to their first child by the age of 19. All recorded births had happened in wedlock," stated the findings of the research which focused on childhood poverty and looked at the aspects of early marriage and teenage pregnancy.

The study conducted in 2013 further said girls from the poorest households were twice as likely as girls from the least-poor households to be married before the age of 18.

"Girls whose parents had the lowest educational aspirations for their daughters at age 12 were twice as likely to be married before age 18, compared with girls whose parents had the highest educational aspirations for them," the study stated.

The study was conducted by Young Lives India, Children's Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) and the Department for International Development (DfID) in collaboration with International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW).

Renu Singh, Country Director, Young Lives, India said "Ministries like Women and Child Development Ministry, Health Ministry, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Labour and legal institutions like Panchayati Raj institutions and Child Protection Committees should actively work with young adolescents in preventing child marriages and early pregnancies."