According to UNICEF, any marriage conducted when one or either of the partners is below 18 years of age, violates the human rights of the minor. Unfortunately, a quarter of women in the age bracket of 20 – 24 years were once child brides. Even when a child lives with a man before formalizing the marriage and continues to care for that person in the hope that when she achieves the legal age they will get married, her rights are still contravened.

Why child marriage takes place?

There are many reasons why girls get married including perceived preservation her family’s honor, culture and religion. The other overwhelming reason for the practice is poverty. Girls Not Brides, a website dedicated to stopping this inhuman behavior, asserts, “Poverty is one of the main drivers of child marriage. Child brides are more likely to be poor and to remain poor.”

Economic impact of dowry

In a situation of acute poverty, marrying off a child leaves the family with one less mouth to feed, educate and clothe. In addition, marrying off a young child even to a man twice her age has monetary gain. According to Girls Not Brides, “Girls from poor families are nearly twice as likely to marry before 18 as girls from wealthier families.”

Poverty and early marriage

This assertion is supported by statistics whereby in Mali, Niger, Bangladesh and Mozambique, where more than 50% of girls become wives while underage, three quarters of the population lives below the poverty line. Lorraine Robinson, writing in One.org, presents the grim statistics that in developing countries such as the ones mentioned above, a third of girls get married before the age of 18.

Snared in poverty

Unfortunately, these girls end up in a poverty trap. Girls who are married early either do not go to schools or fail to complete elementary education. This denies them the opportunity to better their lives through advancement in education. In the homes they get married in, these young brides cannot improve the financial situations, not even those of their children.

An evil repeated

In addition, unless much sensitization is done among women who were once child brides, they will marry off their daughters in the same way. This is because they are trapped in poverty cycles and have to marry off their young daughters in the false hope that the bride price will life them above the poverty line. If women empowerment is to make an impact, child marriages must be stopped.

©EthLeen

The post The Role of Poverty in Early Marriages in India appeared first on Alaafia African Family Resource Center.

Numbers don’t lie

One is tempted to ask, like one writer posed in More, “Is India the rape capital of the world?” Did you know that a third of rape victims in India are below 18 years? A woman gets raped in India after every 20 minutes! Between 2009 and 2011, 68,000 cases of rape were reported in the country.

Annual Rape Festival

The Annual New Delhi Rape Festival has a prize of US$1,000,000. When a 6-15 year old girl is asked to run so that mature men can run after her and defile her for fun, how do we consider that a society that values women?

Raping Women in Buses

The world listened and watched with consternation the unfortunate event of a woman who was raped in a public service bus. The rapists committed this atrocity against an innocent lady and executed their evil with so much brutality that one would have thought they knew her personally.

Many more cases

There is no end to the cases of rape that emanate from India. There are stories of young girls being raped and then hanged. Recently, a 74 year-old nun was raped by six men. This epitomizes a deeper problem than that which courts and jails can solve. When analyzing these cases, it is important to remember that the reported ones are a very small percentage of actual occurrences.

©EthLeen

The post Glorifying Rape in India appeared first on Alaafia African Family Resource Center.