BHUBANESWAR: Amid a raging debate over the Centre’s move to increase legal marriage age of women from 18 to 21 years, the Odisha State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (OSPCR) has expressed its disagreement with the proposal.
The panel has suggested the Parliamentary Standing Committee examining the bill to bring down the legal marriageable age of boys from 21 to 18 instead of increasing it to 21 for girls.
In a letter to Chairperson of the Committee Vinay P Sahasrabuddhe, OSPCR Chairperson Sandhyabati Pradhan underlined that change of legislation in isolation will never be able to stop child marriage, unless there is socio-behavioural change among the parents and community. Once passed, she said, the bill will have several legal consequences. Acts like Juvenile Justice Care and Protection and schemes like Integrated Child Protection Scheme have the scope to extend support to such vulnerable children only up to the age of 18. There will be no scope to provide support to a child bride/groom between the age of 19 and 21 if rescued from child marriage.
“Similarly, POCSO has restricted consensual sex up to the age of 18. This implies that someone may have sexual act after 18 but won’t be able to marry till 21. It will create a new set of issues like increasing unwed mothers and feticide thereafter,” she said. The proposed amendment if enacted, will be having an overriding effect over every other law, custom, usage or practice. Stating that the Commission has examined laws relating to child marriage from different countries, Pradhan said the minimum legal age of marriage for both boys and girls should be 18.
“When the Prevention of Child Marriage Bill, 2004 introduced in Lok Sabha, it was also referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee which had suggested to keep 18 as the minimum legal age for marriage for both boys and girls,” she wrote.