A report on child marriage brought out by the NGO, Samajika Parivarthana Janandolana, showed that 49 per cent of child brides interviewed did not have access to high school, and as a result were forced to discontinue their education.
It showed that 91 per cent of the respondents, who had dropped out of school before the tenth standard, were married by the age of 16. Only 3 per cent of respondents continued their studies after marriage.
The preliminary report on child marriage, conducted in association with the NGO Child Rights and You, examines socio-economic causes and effects of child marriage in Karnataka, based on interviews with 130 child brides.
The report infers that poverty, endorsement of child marriage by religious authorities, and patriarchal traditions such as dowry demands are primarily to blame for early marriages. The child marriage report also points to education as the “key to breaking this vicious cycle”, suggesting a correlation between teenage dropout rates and child marriage.
The report recommends that Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act of 2009 be revised to cater to girls between the ages of 15 and 18.
