Two lakh child marriages prevented during past year but one in 5 girls still wed below legal age: Minister Annapurna Devi

Speaking at an event to launch the Bal Vivah Mukt Bharat campaign, she urged all states and Union territories to create specific action plans aimed at reducing child marriage rates to below 5 per cent by 2029.

New Delhi: The Centre on Wednesday launched a campaign to eradicate child marriage. Union women and child development minister Annapurna Devi said that the campaign, Bal-Vivah Mukht Bharat Abhiyan, will focus on the seven high-burden states and nearly 300 high-burden districts where child marriage rates are high as compared to the national average.

The seven high-burden states include West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Tripura, Assam, and Andhra Pradesh. The minister said that United Nations data showed that South Asian countries, and especially India, contributed to the highest decline in child marriage cases globally. “In the last year, the ministry had success in preventing over two lakh child marriages,” she said.

The minister said that despite declining numbers of child marriage – with the prevalence of child marriage in India being halved from 47.4% to 23.3% in 2019-21 since the introduction of the Prevention of Child Marriage Act in 2006 – the practice of child marriage continues to persist across the country.

“The campaign therefore calls on every state and Union Territory to devise an action plan aimed at reducing the child marriage rates below 5% by 2029,” she said.

At the launch of the campaign, over 150 District Collectors, officials from district administrations, NGOs, panchayats, schools, and local bodies attended. Additionally, over 50,00,000 individuals participated online in the pledge-taking ceremony. As part of the campaign, the minister also inaugurated a portal called Child Marriage Free Bharat Portal where people can report child marriage incidents, file complaints, and access information about Child Marriage Prohibition Officers (CMPOs) nationwide.