Married to a man 11 years older, Ashmita suffers as a child bride

While washing dishes in one of her employer’s houses in South Delhi, Ratnesh looks tired and sweaty. Much of the Rs 12,000 the 40-year-old, slender, short, woman earns by working as a domestic help goes to repay the 2 lakh rupees loan that she took to marry off her eldest daughter last year. She says “With this huge loan amount to repay, I’m concerned about the marriage of my second daughter, Shivani.”

Her elder daughter Ashmita was just 14 years old when she was sent to her in-laws. She was seven years old when she was married to a man who was 11 years older than her. “When we sent her to her in-law’s house last year, she didn’t object even once. She was brought up with this mindset and this is what she is supposed to do,” Ratnesh says about her elder daughter.

Shivani, whose marriage she is much concerned about, is just 11 years old now. According to UNICEF, in India, about 27% of females are married off before turning 18 years old. When it comes to child marriage, there are health and psychological issues associated. Ratnesh says, “Ash- mita faces abuse from her hus- band’s family and because of the age difference; he treats her more like a servant. But we are help- less, we cannot bring her back.” Ratnesh, like other members of her family residing in Bhiwani, a village in Haryana, thinks that education isn’t for girls. She says:

“When there is a girl in the family, she ought to marry off as soon as she attains puberty. For a girl, education is useless and a waste of money. It doesn’t help in hav- ing better marriage prospects.”

Some initiatives are being tak- en in different parts of the coun- try to delay the marriages of girls by providing them with some incentives. The state of Haryana also introduced the ‘Apni Beti, Apna Dhan’ program in 1994, to delay young marriages. The program provides ₹25,000 gov- ernment-paid bonds in the girl’s name, after her 18th birthday if she is not married. However, the results are merely visible and prohibition officers of Soni- pat and Panipat have confirmed an increase in the prevalence of child marriages in recent years.