511 minors married off in 2019

■ Activist says fear of girls eloping forces parents’ hand

Even as slogans of ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ ring out, child marriage is a reality for young girls in Telangana state.

Although the number of such marriages has gone down in the past six years, some 500 girls have had underage marriages from April to December

2019, across Telangana state, says a report released by the state government on ‘Status on District Wise Child Marriages’.

According to the report, there were 1102 child marriages in Telangana state in 201516, which has now come down to 511 cases. From 2014 to date, the district of Khammam has alone had the highest cases of child marriages (532), with 29 cases in the period April-December 2019. In Mahbubabad there have been 37 cases of child marriage during the same period.

On Saturday, a girl child was rescued from the SR Nagar area in Borabanda, as she was being forcibly married off by her parents. She has now been sent to a state home and case has been registered against the parents.

Child marriages are a social evil, no doubt, but they cannot be dealt with without acknowledging the fact that increasing financial insecurity and lack of education, especially in urban and suburban areas is keeping this practice alive.

“There is a fear of girls eloping with their ‘boyfriends’ which makes parents perform child marriages. Education, awareness and voluntary leadership by these girls are the only deterrent to this social evil,” said Mr Achyuta Rao, president of Balala Hakkula Sangham, a child rights organisation.

Mr Rao added that he has sent an appeal to Parliament to amend the legal age for girls to marry to 21 years from the current 18 years.

Mr Venkataswamy, an official with the Integrated Child Protection Scheme, a centrally sponsored scheme that aims at building a protective environment for children in difficult circumstances, said that while there is no denying the practice of child marriages, the Central and state governments have been working to eliminate it by “various

Increasing financial insecurity and lack of education is keeping this practice alive, according to an activist.