GUWAHATI:
A crackdown on unlawful little one marriages in India’s northeast has resulted in practically 5,000 arrests, after 416 individuals had been detained within the newest police sweep, a minister mentioned Sunday.
“We’ll proceed to take daring steps to finish this social evil,” Himanta Biswa Sarma, chief minister of Assam state, mentioned in an announcement.
“Assam continues its struggle towards little one marriage,” he added, saying raids have been carried out in a single day and that these arrested could be produced in court docket on Sunday.
India is house to greater than 220 million little one brides, in line with the United Nations, however the variety of little one weddings has fallen dramatically this century.
Assam state had already arrested hundreds in earlier abolition drives that started in February 2023, together with mother and father of married {couples} and registrars who signed off on underage betrothals.
It takes the overall now arrested to greater than 4,800 individuals.
Sarma has campaigned on a platform of stamping out little one marriages utterly in his state by 2026.
The authorized marriage age in India is eighteen however hundreds of thousands of kids are pressured to tie the knot when they’re youthful, notably in poorer rural areas.
Many mother and father marry off their youngsters within the hope of bettering their monetary safety.
The outcomes could be devastating, with women dropping out of faculty to cook dinner and clear for his or her husbands, and struggling well being issues from giving beginning at a younger age.
In a landmark 2017 judgement, India’s prime court docket mentioned that intercourse with an underage spouse constituted rape, a ruling cheered by activists.