A recent study led by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health has found that progress towards eliminating child marriage in India has stalled. Although there has been a decline in child marriage rates in the country, the study reveals that one in five girls and nearly one in six boys are still married as children, with the practice becoming more prevalent in certain states and union territories.
Child marriage is a violation of human rights and a form of gender- and sexual-based violence. Addressing this issue is crucial for India to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 5.3. The study, titled “Prevalence of Girl and Boy Child Marriage: A Repeated Cross-sectional Study Examining the Subnational Variation across States and Union Territories in India, 1993-2021,” was published in The Lancet Global Health.
This research is one of the first to estimate the changes in girl and boy child marriage rates over time at a state and union territory level. Boy child marriage, in particular, has often been overlooked, with minimal research on its prevalence. S. V. Subramanian, the lead author and professor of population health and geography, highlights the significance of this study in understanding the burden of child marriage in India for effective policymaking.
While India legally defines child marriage as marriage before the age of 18 for girls and before the age of 21 for boys, this study used a definition of marriage before the age of 18 for both sexes. By analyzing data from all five waves of the National Family Health Survey conducted in 1993, 1999, 2006, 2016, and 2021, the researchers estimated the number of men and women between the ages of 20-24 who met this definition by state and union territory.
The study found that child marriage rates declined nationwide between 1993 and 2021. The prevalence of girl child marriage decreased from 49% in 1993 to 22% in 2021, while boy child marriage decreased from 7% in 2006 to 2% in 2021. However, progress in ending child marriage has stagnated in recent years. The largest reductions in child marriage prevalence occurred between 2006 and 2016, with the lowest reduction observed between 2016 and 2021. Disturbingly, during these later years, six states and union territories experienced an increase in girl child marriage, and eight saw an increase in boy child marriage.
In 2021, the study determined that there were over 13.4 million women and more than 1.4 million men between the ages of 20-24 who were married as children. This equates to one in five girls and nearly one in six boys being married below the legal age of marriage in India.
Child marriage is a violation of human rights, emphasizing the urgent need to address this issue. Jewel Gausman, the first author and research associate in the Department of Global Health and Population, notes that child marriage is both a cause and a consequence of social and economic vulnerability, leading to various negative health outcomes. Gausman highlights the concern of stagnation in reaching zero child marriage in states and union territories, calling for renewed progress in India.
Co-author Rockli Kim, a visiting scientist at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, contributed to the study as well.
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