About 26% of youth below 18 years and 2.3% of girls in the age group of 10 to 14 years are getting married in Andhra Pradesh.
This was revealed in a survey conducted by Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS) recently. Among boys, 1.1% are getting married between 10 and 14 years.
In nine out of 13 districts in the State, more than 2% of the girls below 18 years are getting married. Krishna district recorded the highest incidence in AP with 3.3% of girls being married below their legal age, followed by Anantapur (2.73%), Visakhapatnam (2.67) and Kurnool (2.39), said CESS senior faculty P. Prudhvikar Reddy.
He was speaking at the one-day meeting on ‘Developing Strategies to Tackle Child and Early Marriages’, jointly organised by CESS and Women Development and Child Welfare (WD&CW) Department here on Friday.
In Krishna district, child marriages were high in Vijayawada Urban, Nagayalanka, Nuzvid, Tiruvuru, A. Konduru and Chillakallu mandals.