38 high-risk districts in Rajasthan selected for drive against child marriage

A civil society network has selected 38 high-risk districts in Rajasthan to conduct an intensive drive to completely weed out the practice of child marriage over the next year, through community efforts and legal interventions.

The drive will extend support to the State government’s actions and use the resources of village panchayats to spread awareness in far-off areas.

Just Rights for Children (JRC), working with 17 partner organisations in the State, claims to have prevented 22,480 child marriages in Rajasthan during the last year.

High prevalence districts

The villages falling within the 38 districts selected for the drive have been identified as “high-prevalence areas” in terms of child marriages, according to the National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5), conducted from 2019 to 2021.

As per the NFHS-5, the prevalence of child marriage in Rajasthan is 25.4%, barely above the national average of 23.3%. Various districts in the State, however, show huge disparity. Chittorgarh and Bhilwara districts have a child marriage prevalence of over 40%, while nine districts — Jhalawar, Tonk, Sawai Madhopur, Bundi, Bharatpur, Karauli, Bikaner, Alwar, and Pratapgarh — have a prevalence of over 30%. There are nine more districts where the child marriage prevalence is between 23% and 29.9%.

Community outreach

JRC founder Bhuwan Ribhu said here on Saturday that community groups, faith leaders, village panchayats, and citizens would play an important role in the drive. “Child marriage is a crime against children. We will make every possible effort to completely eliminate child marriages through collective work,” Mr. Ribhu said.

The Union Ministry of Women and Child Development also launched a 100-day nationwide movement on Friday to help end child marriage in the country by 2030. India has committed to the global target of eliminating the practice by that date, in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

The JRC has been using the model of “protection, prevention, and prosecution” to stop child marriages across the country, Mr. Ribhu said. The network has driven a major shift through legal interventions and awareness on child marriage laws in communities and schools, as well as among faith leaders and marriage service providers.

The State government has also asked all the field functionaries and officials of the Medical & Health, Panchayati Raj and Rural Development Ministries, as well as the Education and Higher Education Departments to actively participate and make the Centre’s campaign against child marriage impactful.