NEW DELHI: Around half of the maternal deaths in the tribal population are caused by early marriages, teen pregnancies and anaemia, said a parliamentary panel.
Around 30 per cent of tribal girls marry before turning 18, said the panel which expressed concern about the high death rate of young mothers.
The panel said states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand had run successful programmes to intervene in early marriages.
“Early marriage and the resultant pregnancy combined with anaemia is causing 46 per cent of maternal deaths among tribals,” said the report ‘health facilities for tribal women.’
Citing the findings of National Family Health Survey-5 available for 26 states, which showed that 17 states had shown improvement in arresting teenage pregnancies, the Committee headed by BJP Lok Sabha MP Dr Heena Vijaykumar Gavit, said that they are not “confident about this finding as the family of the girl often misrepresents the girl’s age in the tribal areas, and it is very difficult to determine exact/right age of a girl in the absence of a robust and accurate birth registration system.”
The Committee said until and unless awareness is created among the tribal population, especially about the health risks involved in early marriage and the resultant pregnancy, desired results cannot be achieved.
"Therefore, the government should focus on creating awareness among the tribal population about the necessity to avoid the early marriage of girls, the need to have spacing between children and the importance of educating girls with the help of community leaders, ASHAs, Anganwadi workers and other functionaries at the ground level in tribal areas," it said.
It asked the Ministry of Tribal Affairs to coordinate with states/UTs with high tribal populations to devise suitable intervention strategies to prevent the early marriage of girl children as is being done in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand so that “tribal girls who are already bearing the brunt of malnutrition and anaemia are not exposed to further health risks through child marriage.”
It also recommended that the state governments should also be impressed upon to undertake rigorous awareness programs and also employ stringent measures to ensure that tribal girls are not married off before the legal age of marriage.
Noting that the Committee are aware of “keeping girls in school and reaching out to those who are out of school is vital in the fight against child marriage,” it recommended the ministry to coordinate with the Union Education Ministry to devise a special action plan in order to retain tribal girl children in schools, facilitate their higher education and develop alternate learning programmes for out of school girl child.
The panel said that currently, 55.17 per cent of tribal women use modern contraceptive methods and 14 per cent use spacing methods for family planning.
It said that 24.4 per cent of tribal men are using contraceptives compared to the national level of 25.8 per cent.
Since family planning services have the potential to improve the health of the mother, which in turn assists social and economic upliftment of the family, the Committee recommended the Ministry of Tribal Affairs focus on educating women and their respective husbands about the proper use and benefits of modern contraceptives, the report said.