On January 17, Beauty Khatoon was all set to greet the newly-wed couple at a reception near her house in Sabjipara, a village in English Bazar area of West Bengal’s Malda district.
When the 16-year-old guest got there, she was shocked to find that the bride was younger than her. She reacted by refusing to take part in the feast. Going a step further, she threatened to call the police to stop the marriage.
“I told the elders that I will call the police,” Ms. Khatoon, a class VIII student, told The Hindu . However, there was little she could do to convince the family members that they were committing an offence.
The intervention at the wedding party did not go down well with those present, and some of them beat her for being audacious. The visit ended with her being dragged away, injured, and dumped near her home. The attack left her unconscious and she was hospitalised for a week at Malda Medical College and Hospital.
“I want to stop child marriages. But I am a little scared because those who beat me up have been released from prison,” she said.
The young activist against child marriage said she was inspired to take up the cause by a discussion organised by an NGO, Bulbulchandi and Barind Development Society (BBDS) at her school, Monpara Nivedita Balika Vidyalaya.
Pains of a district
Ms. Khatoon is the sixth of seven siblings and the youngest of five daughters of Maqbool, a vegetable vendor. Her campaign stands out because child marriages are not uncommon in the neighbourhood that she grew up in.
Malda District Magistrate Sharad Dwivedi lauds her act of defiance. “It is important to take into consideration that social indicators like education, health, nutrition and sanitation are low in Malda, when compared to other districts.”
Officials attribute the higher infant mortality rate in the district to the early marriage of girls; babies born to young, anaemic girls are usually underweight. The district also fares poorly in providing sanitation and many cases of trafficking in girls are recorded here.
“At least a dozen child marriages have been called off after Ms. Khatoon’s incident and three people have been arrested for beating her,” Mr. Souvik Chatterjee of BBDS, said.
Ms. Khatoon is one of 14 women and the youngest in the group to be felicitated by the West Bengal Women’s Commission at the International Women’s Day 2017 celebrations.
“I met her at her home in Malda. She is an ideal example of a girl with courage,” chairperson of State Women’s Commission Sunanda Mukherjee said.
