BHUBANESWAR : The Odisha government is considering to give more power to stakeholders in the school education sector to bring down child marriages in the state.
The issue has been mentioned in the 100-day action plan of the Women and Child Development department. Under it, the department plans to declare headmasters, principals of schools, wardens of hostels under the School and Mass Education, ST and SC Development and Panchayati Raj departments besides sarpanchs as the new child marriage prohibition officers (CMPOs) in addition to the existing district child protection officers (DCPOs). The target group for CMPOs will be boys and girls in the age group of 10 to 19.
The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act mandates every state to appoint or designate an officer as CMPO in every district who will be responsible for preventing such weddings, collecting evidence for prosecution of people violating the Act and sensitising the community on the issue of child marriages.
In Odisha, the state government has declared the CDPOs of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) projects as CMPOs. At present, the state has one CMPO in each block. “Designating school heads, wardens and sarpanchs as CMPOs will further strengthen the state’s initiatives in ending child marriages. Reporting and prevention of such marriages will improve immensely,” said an official of the department.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)’s ‘Crimes in India’ reports, Odisha reported 178 cases of child marriages from 2018 to 2022. While 22 cases each were reported in 2018 and 2019, the number was 24 in 2020. However, there was a spike in child marriages during the Covid-19 period when 64 cases were officially reported in 2021 and 46 in 2022, almost over 50 per cent rise in such marriages.
Odisha was also among the top 10 states reporting highest number of minor marriages during the pandemic period. The NCRB’s 2022 report also pointed out that 50 minor girls were kidnapped/abducted for marriage in 2021. The number was 92 in 2020.
Child rights activists said the actual number of violations reported under The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act will be much more because these are the only cases that were reported to police. Many cases, particularly in rural Odisha, go unreported.
The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) points out that minor marriages are more prevalent among boys than girls in the state. According to NFHS-5, the percentage of boys marrying before attaining the legal age of 21 has increased to 13.3 per cent from 11 per cent in NFHS-4. Again, this percentage is higher at 14.8 in rural Odisha compared to 7.8 per cent in urban parts of the state.