According to experts, the findings of a national government survey showing that over half of women in Jharkhand and West Bengal marry before turning 21 also show that there are few prospects for young women to find long-term employment. The advantages of government programmes are not, according to the findings, reaching the targeted demographic, they added. Given that the poll was carried out during the COVID epidemic, some experts have highlighted concerns regarding the validity of the results.
The survey, whose findings were reported late last month, discovered that Jharkhand and West Bengal are the only two states in the nation where more than half of women get married before turning 21. While the national average for marriage is 29.5 percent, 54.9% of girls in West Bengal get married before turning 21 years old, compared to 54.6% in Jharkhand. “Women have a lot of issues, especially in rural regions. They are unable to find decent, long-term employment. And so parents only have one choice left: to marry them off, “added Congress member Deepika Pandey Singh, who has started a campaign against early weddings in Jharkhand.
In Jharkhand, early marriage is common among all social groups, including the tribal, Hindu, minority, educated, uneducated, wealthy, and poor. According to Singh, persistent efforts are required to raise awareness among them. Sukanya Sarbadhikari, a professor of sociology at Kolkata’s Presidency University, corroborated her sentiments. “A young woman in a rural location may be seeking the option to get married off because she and her parents can’t wait for her to become economically independent for a longer period of time,” Sarbadhikari said. She told PTI that because some sections of West Bengal are bordering Jharkhand, the situation there may be similar.
“It says a lot about how unevenly these states have developed. It demonstrates that there must be a portion of the population that is still insulated from the advantages of state and federal policy “said Alok K. Gupta, associate professor and dean of the Central University of Jharkhand’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences. He told PTI that institutional shortcomings in the creation and application of policy are evident at several levels. “It shows that even after seventy-five years of independence, our policy interventions towards women’s empowerment and legislation prohibiting child marriage, as well as increasing the proportion of females enrolled in educational institutions, have not delivered as they should have,” Prof. Gupta said.
Leena Gangopadhyay, the West Bengal Commission for Women’s Chair, said: “All I can say is that I have personally visited every area, and my observations don’t support the report’s findings. In two or three districts, there can be a trend to marry off girls too young, but once that is brought to our attention, we move right away to stop it “She spoke. According to Gangopadhyay, initiatives like Kanyashree have significantly aided West Bengali ladies in speaking up loudly about their opinions.
Kanyashree is a conditional cash transfer scheme aiming at improving the status and well-being of the girl child by incentivising the schooling of teenage girls and delaying their marriages until the age of 18. It received the United Nations Public Service Award in 2019.
However, according to Prof. Sarbadhikari, West Bengal’s Rupashree programme financially aids a guardian in marrying off the adult daughter. Sudeshna Roy, the chair of the West Bengal Commission for the Protection of Children’s Rights, stated that a woman beyond the age of 18 is free to choose to marry because she is now an adult. Women are freer and cannot be compelled to make decisions against their choice in states like West Bengal, according to Roy.
Salkhan Murmu, a well-known tribal leader and former Jharkhand MP, suggested that there may be a number of causes, including ignorance and terrible poverty. However, several of the people PTI spoke to on the subject questioned how the survey could have been conducted in 2020 considering that the nation was ravaged by the Covid-19 outbreak and that performing fieldwork would have been impossible for a sizable amount of time. “Regarding the report’s authenticity, I make no comments. However, we are unclear about the approach taken during those trying times. The government is waging a campaign against child marriage and the marriage of young women against their will, and we have made significant progress in this regard “a senior government official in West Bengal reported.
The Jharkhand university professor also said that on many occasions, such statistics are misleading. “Yet, I believe that if these statistics are true, the government and society should take up the cause of women empowerment more seriously,” Prof Gupta said.
