BHUBANESWAR: Even as the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has pointed out a spurt in the number of missing children in Odisha, as per the Crime in India-2022 report, the number of child marriages has come down in the state.
Sources said the state had witnessed 64 such weddings between 2020 and 2021 which was the highest in the last one decade. According to the report, the number of cases registered under The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 between 2021 and 2022 was 46.
Further, in offences committed on the pretext of marriage, the offenders in 1,616 cases registered under the POCSO Act were either friends, online friends or live-in partners. Activists working in the field of eradication of child marriages, however, said the number of child marriages continue to remain high if compared to the pre-pandemic period. In 2019, the number of cases registered under The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act was 22 and it was 24 in 2020.
Earlier this year, the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) had reported an overall decline in the prevalence of child marriage in the state from 21.3 per cent in NFHS-4 to 20.5 per cent in NFHS-5.