A timely WhatsApp message from a girl to an NGO helped stop a marriage of her classmate with a person 10 years older than her at Anumalapalle village, near Racherla, in Prakasam district on Tuesday.
The 12-year-old eighth class student confided in her close friend about the marriage arranged against her wish with a man working as a messenger in a private bank in Nandyal and showed the pictures of the betrothal function held last week and sought her help to stop the marriage. Her friend took snaps of the pictures with her smart phone and shared them with the NGO with a plea to stop her friend’s marriage.
Following this, B.V. Sagar, the programme officer of the NGO HELP, led a team of social activists to the sleepy village and thwarted the wedding. An undertaking was taken from the child’s parents that they would not perform her marriage before she attained 18 years of age, Mr. Sagar said.
Social media role
The social media had made their work easier in reaching out to children in distress, Mr. Sagar said, adding that another WhatsApp message from a rural journalist had enabled the NGO stop a child marriage at N.G. Padu recently.
In another case, a youth gave a tip-off about a child marriage arranged in Chirala and that the child bride was confined at an undisclosed place. Following intervention, the parents handed over the child to the police who shifted her to a rescue home, he said.
Wrath of relatives
“The road is not always smooth for the social activists as they quite often have to incur the wrath of the hostile crowd of relatives and friends who sympathise with the bride’s parents citing that they had spent lakhs of rupees to arrange the marriage,” he explained. “Many times we even persuade the grocery shop owners to take back the rice and other commodities purchased for the wedding and make arrangements for the hapless girls to continue their education by putting them in State-run hostels,” Mr. Sagar said.
