Girl,Interrupted

The threat worked and Bijule’s parents rejected the proposal. She then continued with her studies and,this year,cleared her Class X board examinations with 60 per cent marks. “I want to be a teacher when I grow up,” she says.

Bijule’s story is a sign of a slow but heartening change in Jalna,where most girls get married as soon as they hit puberty or “come of age”. The bride is mostly 12-14 years of age,while the groom is in his early 20s or late teens. Invariably,his family is economically better off. Figures released by the United Nation Children’s Fund (Unicef) show that every year,Jalna alone sees 300 weddings involving girls. “These figures are based on the information we manage to collect,but field visits paint a grimmer picture,with the Jalna district alone witnessing more than 600 child marriages on an average,” says Ravi Sahane,a field officer of the Unicef-run intervention programme in the area.

The number of child brides in India is around 24 million,the highest in the world,accounting for 40 per cent of the world’s child marriages. The Marathwada region has one of the worst records in the country along with Rajasthan,Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.

Child marriages,says Unicef’s Maharashtra coordinator GN Sharma,are most common among families of agricultural labourers. “In Jalna,the rationale behind marrying minor girls off is that it gives them some security in the face of rampant sexual violence. With both parents going out for work during the day, the question before them is how to save their daughter from molestation. The simple solution is to get her married so that her ‘honour’ is in the custody of her in-laws,” he says. According to field workers of Unicef,one in every five girls experiences sexual violence at some point of her life in Jalna. Also,a married couple that is into agricultural labour (called koytha) is paid more than single male/female labourers.

For the last two years,Unicef has been running a series of community-based intervention programmes here to raise awareness against child marriage. Foot soldiers called “peer educators” talk to parents as well as young girls about its debilitating effects,such as a large number of deaths during childbirth and high infant mortality rates. In the last two years,they have saved 85 girls from early marriage in Jalna.

Many of these peer educators are young girls themselves. Bijule is one,and she has helped prevent two weddings involving minors. Like her,many peer educators stood up against the practice in their own homes,when it was their turn to be married off. Prathibha Chandense,17,and her mother invited the ire of villagers when she refused to marry a much older man. A resident of Godri village in Bhokardan taluka,Chandense’s predicament was compounded by her family history. Her father had deserted her mother many years ago. “The marriage proposal came when I was 15. The groom was well-off. He ran a grocery shop in the village. Our relatives insisted that I agree to the marriage,but I didn’t want to get married before 18. I have seen many under-18 girls suffer ill-health,even death,after marriage,” she says. Her arguments seemed convincing to her mother.

This act of “insubordination” on part of a daughter and a “deserted woman” angered villagers,who decided to ostracise them. The situation worsened when Chandense intervened to prevent another minor from getting married. “Some men in the village have threatened to kill us if we don’t mend our ways. We are always alert and never venture out of our home after dark,” she says.

Similarly,15-year-old Archana Shevale,who dropped out of school last year due to poverty,and works as a farm labourer to help her widowed mother,had to face the wrath of her relatives when she rejected the proposal of an older man. “Our family was criticised for being ‘modern’. Even now,they mock that my decision has not made us less poor,” she says.

Indeed,in Jalna’s villages where women are only seen and not heard,bringing about change is not easy. When Bijule successfully threatened the families of two girls with police action unless they cancelled plans to marry them off,she won her mother’s support but incurred her father’s wrath. “He says that my mother and I have brought dishonour to the family,” she says.

Even though peer educators often threaten police action,the reality is that the police is often apathetic to these complaints. “Marriage is an industry,with many stakeholders. Our intervention is disturbing a thriving economy,in which everyone has a share. No wonder the police doesn’t help us,” says Kailash Sontakke,Unicef’s block coordinator of Bhokardan taluka.

Women’s rights activist Kiran Moghe calls for a social solution rather than a legal one. “The law has been in place since years,but it is poorly implemented. We need a dialogue within society to raise awareness and break this vicious circle,” she says.

With no such dialogue in place,the girls are left to fight a lonely battle. “Every day,the men in the village call us names and accuse us of immoral activities. All because I had prevented a minor girl from getting married. I know what I did was right,but at times I wonder if it was worth it,” says Chandense. n