Maharashtra Minister for Women and Child Development Aditi Tatkare on Monday held a meeting with the Beed District Collector and the team working in the district to eliminate child marriages after CNN-News18 highlighted the menace in the region.
In the two-hour-long meeting, Beed Collector Deepa Mudhol-Mundhe and her team gave a presentation to Tatkare about the efforts that the district administration has taken so far to stop child marriages in the district.
Mundhe said every Monday, children take a pledge in school against child marriage while teachers — with the help of sports like throw ball — are helping girl students build confidence at the school level. The team said 160 child marriages have been stopped in Beed district so far this year and 21 FIRs have also been registered not only against the parents of the child but also against the attendees.
Speaking to News18, Munde said: “If we talk about Beed district, the migration of sugarcane labourers has led to a rise in child marriages. In many places, girls have to go far due to non-availability of high schools. If bus arrangements are made for girls, there will be reduction in child marriages in Beed.”
In the meeting, the district administration team explained the different reasons behind child marriages in Beed — the biggest being that the area is a sugarcane labourers’ belt.
Every year, post September, labourers from Beed migrate to neighbouring districts like Kolhapur, Satara, Sangli as well as states like Karnataka, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh for sugarcane cutting. Couples are more likely to get a good remuneration compared to a single labourer. Hence, post September, the number of child marriages goes up in this district.
Authorities also said whenever they take strict action against child marriages in Beed district, people go to nearby districts like Jalana and Aurangabad to get their children married off.
Another reason behind the menace is lack of education. Many girls drop out of school after Class 7 as secondary schools are located far from rural villages. In rural Beed, the absence of senior schools is worsened by the fact that many parents are reluctant to send their girls to school that are far due to lack of transportation, high costs and security.
Hence, the government, with the help of local NGOs, has started awareness campaigns to build the confidence of parents and girl children and teach them why child marriage is unacceptable. Students have been asked to call 1098 to report child marriages and are assured that their identity will be kept secret. This has benefited the administration in reducing child marriages.
From April 1, 2016, to March 31, 2017, information about 19 cases of child marriage was received by the administration. Between April 1, 2017, and March 31, 2018, this number was 27. Another spike was seen between April 2, 2019, and March 31, 2020, when the administration was informed of 39 cases of child marriage. The number rose to 41 between April 1, 2020, and March 31, 2021; 83 in the next fiscal and then 132 from April 1, 2022, to March 31, 2023. Between April 1 and August 26 this year, the administration received information about 149 cases of child marriage.
After the meeting, Tatkare said: “Today we discussed the measures taken by the district administration so far to stop child marriages. We also felt the need to take the help of other departments like education, transport, and sports to stop such cases. Instructions have also been given to the district administration to do more aggressive campaigning on the issue.”
She added: “In the coming days, the administration will hold competitions among different gram panchayats and give away prizes to encourage them to have low child marriage cases.”
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