INTRODUCTION

Child marriage is a formal marriage or informal union entered into by an individual before
reaching the age of 18. Age of consent laws are intended to protect children from exposure to
sexualisation and sexual exploitation, and child trafficking is also, to some extent, associated
with child marriage. Child marriage affects both boys and girls, though the overwhelming
majority of those affected are girls, most of who are in poor socioeconomic situations.
Child marriage is related to child betrothal and forced early marriage because of the
pregnancy of the girl. In many cases, only one marriage-partner is a child, usually the female.
Child marriages are also driven by poverty, bride price, dowry, cultural traditions, laws that
allow child marriages, religious and social pressures, regional customs, fear of remaining
unmarried, illiteracy, and perceived inability of women to work for money.
Child marriages were common throughout history for a variety of reasons, including poverty,
insecurity, as well as for political and financial reasons. Today, child marriages are still fairly
widespread in some developing countries, such as parts of Africa, South Asia, Southeast and
East Asia, West Asia, Latin America, and Oceania. The incidence of child marriage has been
falling in most parts of the world. The countries with the highest observed rates of child
marriages below the age of 18 are Niger, Chad, Mali, Bangladesh, Guinea and the Central
African Republic, with a rate above 60%.Niger, Chad, Bangladesh, Mali and Ethiopia were
the countries with child marriage rates greater than 20% below the age of 15, according to
2003-2009 surveys.
Child marriage has lasting consequences on girls, from their health, education and social
development perspectives. These consequences last well beyond adolescence. One of the
most commons causes of death for girls aged 15 to 19 in developing countries was pregnancy
and child birth.
It is one of the most pernicious manifestations of the unequal power relations between
females and males. Begun as a practice to protect unwelcome sexual advances and to gain
economic security, child marriage has undermined the very purposes it was meant to achieve.
Child marriage often means for the girl a life of certain sexual and economic servitude. The
subordination of women is both a cause and consequence of child marriage.

Paradoxes and legal contradictions are rife in the institution of child marriage. While
consensual sex with girls below a minimum age constitutes statutory rape, the same act with a
similar aged girl goes unsanctioned by the protective mantle of marriage. Similarly,
violence within marriage was largely ignored by the law until recently. It was only when the
international womens movement tore down the artificial divide between the private and the
public sphere, and revealed the violence in the home was domestic violence legally banned.
The combined strength of the womens and childrens movements should be directed towards
the practice of child marriage, a tradition which constitutes one of the most severe forms of
child abuse.
Although this issue affects boys as well as girls, given that the tradition of child marriage has
a disproportionately negative impact on the girl child, the focus of this paper will be on girls.
This paper offers a human rights framework and concrete legal guidelines to combat the
practice of child marriage. Although law related strategies alone are inadequate to address
child marriage, legal guidelines help to raise awareness and create clear benchmarks,
standards and remedies to address child marriage.
Child marriage in India, according to Indian law, is a marriage where either the woman is
below age 18 or the man is below age 21. Most child marriages involve underage women,
many of whom are in poor socio-economic conditions.
Child marriages are prevalent in India. Estimates vary widely between sources as to the
extent and scale of child marriages. The International Center for Research on WomenUNICEF publications have estimated India's child marriage rate to be 47% from small
sample surveys of 1998, while the United Nations reports it to be 30% in 2005. The Census
of India has counted and reported married women by age, with proportion of females in child
marriage falling in each 10 year census period since 1981. In its 2001 census report, India
stated zero married girls below age 10, 1.4 million married girls out of 59.2 million girls in
the age 10-14, and 11.3 million married girls out of 46.3 million girls in the age 15-19 (which
includes 18-19 age group). Since 2001, child marriage rates in India have fallen another 46%,
reaching an overall nationwide average 7% child marriage rates by 2009. Jharkhand is the
state with highest child marriage rates in India (14.1%), while Kerala is the only state where
child marriage rates have increased in recent years, particularly in its Muslim community.
Rural rates of child marriages were three times higher than urban India rates in 2009.

Child marriage was outlawed in 1929, under Indian law. However, in the British colonial
times, the legal minimum age of marriage was set at 15 for girls and 18 for boys. Under
protests from Muslim organizations in the undivided British India, a personal law Shariat Act
was passed in 1937 that allowed child marriages with consent from girl's guardian. After
independence and adoption of Indian constitution in 1950, the child marriage act has
undergone several revisions. The minimum legal age for marriage, since 1978, has been 18
for women and 21 for men. The child marriage prevention laws have been challenged in
Indian courts, with some Muslim Indian organizations seeking no minimum age and that the
age matter is left to their personal law. Child marriage is an active political subject as well as
a subject of continuing cases under review in the highest courts of India.
Several states of India have introduced incentives to delay marriages. For example, the state
of Haryana introduced the so-called Apni Beti, Apna Dhan program in 1994, which translates
to "My daughter, My wealth". It is a conditional cash transfer programme dedicated to
delaying young marriages by providing a government paid bond in her name, payable to her
parents, in the amount of 25000 (US$410), after her 18th birthday if she is not married.

Child Marriage in India:

Law and the Protocol for Action
Child marriage is an age-old practice that has both social and religious sanction and cuts
across all sections of society. Recognising child marriage as a social evil, the Child Marriage
Restraint Act (CMRA) 1929, popularly known as the Sharda Act, prohibited child marriages
of girls below the age of 15 years and of boys below the age 181.
This law applied to all citizens of India. In 1978, the law was amended to make it more
effective and raise the minimum age of marriage by three years i.e. from 15 to 18 years in
case of girls and from 18 to 21 years in case of boys. The amended law came to be known as
the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929. However, despite the law, child marriages continued
to take place.
There are many marriages in which both the girl and the boy are children. In others the girls
are children/minors who are married off to much older men, or sometimes even sold into
marriage. More than half of the women in India are married before the legal minimum age of
18. By contrast, men in the same age group get married at a median age of 23.4 years. Sixteen
percent of men aged 20-49 are married by age 18 and 28 percent by age 20.
Child marriage is complex subject under Indian law. It was defined by The Child Marriage
Restraint Act in 1929. and it set the minimum age of marriage for men as 18, and women as
15. That law was questioned by Muslims, then superseded by personal law applicable only to
Muslims in British India with Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act of 1937, which
implied no minimum limit and allowed parental or guardian consent in case of Muslim
marriages. Section 2 of the 1937 Act stated
any other provision of Personal Law, marriage, dissolution of marriage, including talaq, ila,
zihar, lian, khula and mubaraat, maintenance, dower, guardianship, gifts, trusts and trust

properties, and wakfs (other than charities and charitable institutions and charitable and
religious endowments) the rule of decision in cases where the parties are Muslims shall be the
Muslim Personal Law (Shariats)
Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act of 1937
The 1929 law for non-Muslims was revised a several times after India gained its
independence from the colonial rule, particularly in 1978 when the marriage age was raised
by 3 years each for men and women. The applicability and permissibility of child marriage
among Muslims under the 1937 Act, under India's Constitution adopted in 1950, remains a
controversial subject, with a series of Supreme Court cases and rulings.
The definition of child marriage was last updated by India with its The Prohibition of Child
Marriage Act of 2006, which applies only (a) to Hindus, Christians, Jains, Buddhists and
those who are non-Muslims of India, and (b) outside the state of Jammu and Kashmir. For
Muslims of India, child marriage definition and regulations based on Sharia and Nikah has
been claimed as a personal law subject.[8][10] For all others, The Prohibition of Child Marriage
Act of 2006 defines "child marriage" means a marriage, or a marriage about to be
solemnized, to which either of the contracting parties is a child; and child for purposes of
marriage is defined based on gender of the person - if a male, it is 21 years of age, and if a
female, 18 years of age.