Community driven efforts more effective in preventing child marriage than law

Gulimusha village shows the way

- STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE

In many villages, girls grow up with an unspoken rule that they must pass through the first eighteen stages of life before becoming a wife, a daughter-in-law, and a mother.

However, for most girls, adolescence is being cut short at the age of fifteen or sixteen due to the deep-rooted tradition of child marriage.

Despite government efforts to strengthen the minimum age limit for marriage, implementing these laws remains a challenge in culturally and traditionally ingrained societies.

"Child marriage is embedded as a matter of tradition in different communities, making it difficult to prevent despite legal provisions," said District Child Protection Officer (DCPO) Rajshree Das.