The Centre's move to raise legal age of marriage for women from 18 to 21 has been opposed by Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and CPM leaders in Kerala.
While CPM leaders maintained that raising the age was not the solution to prevent child marriages, the IUML and other Muslim outfits fear that the move was aimed at implementing uniform civil code.
Former CPM MP P K Sreemathi Teacher said that the government should initiate steps to address nutrition issues of young women and children and raising the marriage age of women was not the solution for it. She also pointed out that even as women's age for marriage was raised to 18, child marriages could not be prevented.
IUML MPs from Kerala gave adjournment motion notices in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha over the plans to raise women's legal marriage age. The party alleged that it was an attempt to encroach on Muslim personal law and demanded the government to desist from the move.
Even as the number of child marriage cases being reported in Kerala was comparatively low, a report of Kerala government's economic and statistics department had revealed that 22,552 women in the 15-19 age group gave birth in the state during 2017.
While it was widely considered that child marriages were rampant among the Muslim community, a study published in 2018 found that child marriages were increasing among Hindu and Christian communities as well. Financial backwardness of families was found to be a key factor prompting parents to conduct marriage of girls at the earliest.
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