Chennai: Tamil Nadu, hailed as a one of the progressive states, continues to tops in the number of cases registered under Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006 with 41 cases being registered till June this year alone.
According to National Crime Records Bureau, the state has recorded 56 cases as against a total of 222 cases registered under the Act across the country in 2013. Madurai has recorded a maximum of 14 cases followed by Dharmapuri with 11 cases and Namakkal (10 cases).
The State Crime Records Bureau data shows that as many as 41 cases were registered across the state this year with Dharmapuri and Perambalur recording seven cases each till June this year.
Activists working for the child welfare claim that there are many reasons for child marriages including a mindset that considers girl child as a burden, tradition, illiteracy, poverty, low status of women in society and lack of awareness about consequences of child marriage.
M. Andrew Sesuraj, state convener, Tamil Nadu Child Rights Observatory said off late child marriages has become more rampant across the state. He said that even in the cases when district administration intervenes to stop the child marriages, no cases were being booked against girl’s parents or bridegroom family.
“Unless parents and relatives responsible for these marriages are severely punished, child marriages will continue to take place,” he said pointing out that there was a sudden increase following a campaign by a political party against love marriage. “Parents are getting girl child married very early fearing that they would elope with other caste boys,” the activist said.
Social welfare department officials attributed the high number of cases registered in the state to the effective implementation of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act. “It means we are able to stop many child marriages,” a source said.
Perambalur district social welfare officer K. Pechiammal said that they have stopped as many as 340 child marriages since 2011 thanks to the initiative of district collector Dr Darez Ahamed. “In many cases we are alerted by the girl’s friends or classmates.”
