A Childhood Long Lost

Childhood…Ah!....how I reminisce those days. It’s that time of life when you can truly be yourself and do whatever you want without even giving a thought about what people around you would think. It’s a time when you can be mischievous and never feel guilty about it. It’s an era when you have absolutely no responsibilities, no decisions to make and the words tension and stress do not exist in your vocabulary. Childhood is the most beautiful phase of life and we would beg any day to have a chance to live it again. But sadly, there are millions of children in our country who do not enjoy the kind of childhood that we did. They are thrown into a pit full of never ending misery, where their childhood is forcefully buried deep down into the darkness. This, my friends, is the pit of Child Marriage.

Even after 66 years of Independence, it is shocking to know that India happens to be the epicenter of child marriages, with around 40% of the world’s child marriages being carried out here. Around 39000 children are married every day in India. That means one out of every 2 girls married is below the age of 18. These marriages are often performed without the consent of the girls and many times to men twice their age or older. The highest rates are seen particularly in the rural states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. So the question stands tall: why is the number so huge? And although there is a strict law in India against child marriages, why is it still a major social concern in our country? You cannot entirely blame the law for it; the entire Indian community is actually responsible for it: those who are participants in the crime and those who see it happen and do nothing about it. No one can quite understand what these girls suffer through at such a young age. Only those who go through such an ordeal can truly narrate their stories, and they are heart breaking. The horrors of child marriage as narrated by these girls can be classified into 2 major types:

Premature Pregnancy and its Complications: The prime consequence of child marriage is the fact that young girls are not educated about protection and early pregnancy. As a result, many of these girls die during childbirth and some experience severe complications during and after pregnancy. Infants born to mothers under the age of 18 are more likely to die in their first year. If the children survive, they are more likely to suffer from low birth weight, malnutrition, and late physical and cognitive development, which happens to be another problem that India is dealing with right now.

Violence: Another major consequence of child marriage is violence: both physical and mental. Young girls in a child marriage are more likely to experience domestic violence in their marriages as opposed to older women. A study showed that girls married before 18 years of age are twice as likely to be beaten, slapped, threatened or sexually exploited by their husbands. Not only are they victims of violence by their husbands, but the in–laws also have a role to play in torturing young brides especially for dowry. Such girls often show symptoms of sexual abuse and post-traumatic stress. As a result, there are burnt and beaten up brides arriving every day into hospitals. They either succumb to their injuries or live a life of hell - helpless and savaged.

We say we live in the new age where girls are regarded as equals to their male counterparts. But even though we live in this “self-concocted” world of equality and peace, we cannot deny the fact that the numbers of girls getting married in their childhood are increasing day by day. Brides who are been burnt down for dowry are not diminishing and sexual violence against women has just become a routine everyday news that you either read or watch on television and ignore it, cursing the government for lenient laws.

Believe me, it is not the government who is to be held responsible every time, it is the animal within us which releases without notice and engages into such heinous crimes – either as a criminal or as a spectator to the crime. No amount of law can put an end to such social evils, if we the people of India do not stand up to crimes against women and fight back – not only for the sake of those poor girls but for the sake of Mother India.