Status: 02/20/2023 3:31 p.m
Nowhere do so many minors marry as in India. UNICEF estimates that there should be 1.5 million a year. The state of Assam is now proceeding with arrests – with sometimes drastic consequences for the families concerned.
Nureja Khatun is desperate: “At around 11 p.m. the police took my husband away and took him to the police station,” she told a reporter for the AP news agency. “I have a little girl. Who is going to feed her now? How are we going to survive?”
Strictly speaking, Nureja’s husband Akbar Ali was arrested because of her. Because he married her two years ago. At that time Nureja was only 17 years old – according to the law a child marriage.
3000 arrested husbands
In Assam, a state in north-eastern India, the government is now cracking down on such marriages with unprecedented severity. The husbands are arrested, more than 3,000 have been arrested so far. They are being held in makeshift prisons. They face at least two years imprisonment, in extreme cases even more.
Radha Rani Mandal’s son is also among them, he is the breadwinner of the family. She cries and is stunned. “I contacted a lawyer for the court case. It was heartbreaking to tell him I have no money. I only had a few hundred rupees for transportation. I begged him because my daughter-in-law is pregnant. I know I don’t know what to do. There’s no money in the house. How can I go around looking for legal counsel on top of the day’s wage labor?”
In every third marriage, one partner is too young
To get married in India, women must be at least 18 years old and men 21 years old. However, this is not observed in large parts of the country. In the state of Assam, known for its tea plantations, it is estimated that in every third marriage, one of the spouses is too young. It is the misery that is behind it, the lack of education and there are traditions, especially in the countryside.
UNICEF estimates that 1.5 million underage girls marry in India every year, more than any other country in the world. It is necessary to take action against child marriages, says Avy Krishna, police director in Assam’s capital, Guwahati. Because of the increased mortality rate, the increase in teenage pregnancy and the high rate of child marriage, the Assam government passed a resolution that “this social evil must be eradicated in our state,” explains Krishna.
“War” on Child Marriage
There is talk of a war against child marriage. A war that started all of a sudden and is also aimed at husbands who married years ago.
Criticism, on the other hand, comes from Anshuman Bora of the state capital’s Supreme Court. Arrests should only be a last resort, he says. “For so many years, 16 or 17 years, nobody took any drastic steps, not even steps to stop child marriage. Suddenly, overnight, out of the blue, they took these steps, they started arresting people. ” Rather, social reforms are important, says the lawyer.
Muslim men are particularly affected
Some in the country suspect political motives. Assam is governed by the Hindu nationalists of the BJP, the party of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Apparently, predominantly Muslim men are affected by the arrests. Only a few hundred of the more than 3,000 arrested are Hindus.
The government says the action is not aimed at Muslims, it’s just about zero tolerance for child marriages. According to the plan, there should be no more such marriages by 2026. But the way this plan is enforced is more a shame than it helps – and here, too, the victims are women, the poor, the uneducated, and illiterate, who depend on what little money the men earn.
The mother of another arrested person is also in despair: “I have no money, no parents, no family, my two children are my only hope of survival. I’ve been looking for my son like a madman. They should bring him back to me. I never knew about those child marriage laws.”