Girls are saved, Girls are educated but where's her dignity!

"Save Girl, Educate Girl" campaign, "Daughter is our proud" slogan, Women's day celebration - But nothing will be changed if girls life is only for the marriage.

One in five underage girls and one in six boys are still getting married before the age of 18 (Now the legal age is 21), according to a Lancet Global Health study, despite the fact that the frequency of child marriage in India decreased from 49.4% in 1993 to 22.3% in 2021. More than 13.4 million women between the ages of 20 and 24 were reportedly pushed into marriage as children by 2021, according to research estimates.

Lead author Jewel Gausman, a research associate at Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health, stated in the school's news release that "child marriage is a human rights violation." A number of negative health outcomes are both a cause and an effect of social and economic vulnerability. We saw a state or union territory's stall in achieving zero child marriage, which is cause for grave concern and a demand for India to rekindle progress.

West Bengal recorded the greatest increase in child weddings in the nation, with over 500,000 girls getting married at an early age, compared to Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, which showed the largest decline in child marriages between 1993 and 2021. In contrast, Manipur, Goa, and Gujarat were unable to stop the rise in underage marriages (among boys) between 2006 and 2021. "The historical implementation of programs to address child marriage has varied across and within states, given that state governments tend to enact social sector policy in India," the researchers stated.

In the last eight years, six Indian states reported a higher rate of child marriage in girls than the other 22 states, despite strict laws against this practice. "States that presently have a high burden and prevalence of child marriage, such Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Rajasthan, should receive special attention. They said, "Child marriages have long-term effects on fertility, health, and mortality patterns that negatively impact the population's well-being and the economy."

While some research indicates that minimum marriage age laws have a positive impact on lowering the incidence of child marriage in nations that have enacted them, others contend that these laws are difficult to enforce, particularly in remote and difficult-to-reach areas or in situations where other authorities, such as religious institutions, can perform marriages without government oversight, ultimately having little effect. Furthermore, laws prohibiting child marriage might not be properly enforced, which would lessen their impact, they continued.