
BHUBANESWAR: The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has identified over 10,000 children as vulnerable to child marriages in Odisha.
These are children who remained absent from school for 30 consecutive days without any notice during the 2023-24 academic session as well as those who had dropped out.
In order to bring out standard operating procedures (SOPs) for preventing child marriages in India, the apex child rights panel conducted a nation-wide survey of such students along with the state governments. In Odisha, it found out 11,053 such children by mapping 26,415 schools in 19,683 villages/blocks.
Across the country, more than 11 lakh students had either remained absent for a month or dropped out. A major factor that contributes to the absence is child marriage. The highest number of cases were reported from Karnataka (215) followed by Assam (163), Tamil Nadu (155) and West Bengal (121).
Odisha was one of the states that reported a very high incidence of child marriages during the Covid-19 pandemic. As per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report, the state reported 46 child marriages in 2022 and 64 had taken place between 2020 and 2021, the highest in the last decade. In 2020, the number of cases registered under The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, was 24, and 22 in 2019.
According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5, there is a drop in underage marriages of girls in Odisha, from 21.3 per cent (pc) during 2015-16 to 20.5 pc now.
In order to further bring down the prevalence, the NCPCR has now asked the state government to strictly implement the SOPs. While fixing roles for every stakeholder in ending child marriage, the SOPs call for maintaining a record of runaway children, identifying families that may be at risk of child welfare issues, issuing rehabilitation cards to rescued children, ensuring the child’s continuity of education, among others.
The government has asked all district collectors to implement the SOPs. Similarly, the school headmasters have been directed to report children remaining absent from school for 30 consecutive days without any notice, to the anganwadi workers or block authorities so that they can inquire into the reasons behind such absence.