Child rights organisation ChildLine and the police intervened to prevent the marriage of a 13-year-old girl at Kaloor here on Wednesday.
Acting on an anonymous tip-off, officials went to the child’s apartment opposite the Jawaharlal Nehru International Stadium in the morning as her parents were allegedly fixing her marriage. Sources said that a 26-year-old man present in the apartment was the intended groom.
“The child’s parents said that they were only fixing her marriage and that the wedding would take place only after five years. They said that as per their religious beliefs, girls had to be married off soon after they hit puberty and they could not wait till she turned 18,” said an official of ChildLine. The couple also have two older daughters, both of whom were married off before they turned 18 years of age. The police, who accompanied the officials, asked the parents to give a written undertaking that they would not marry off the child before she turned 18. “We did not register a case in the matter as the marriage did not take place,” said an official.
