Don't become a single mother, so get married at a young age – News84Media.com

Shravasti and Lalitpur district. Two places where a maximum of child brides from UP live. In Shravasti, 1 in 2 girls marry before the age of 18. 1 out of 3 in Lalitpur. This thing came out in the “NFHS, i.e. National Family Health Survey”.

Dainik Bhaskar reached both districts one by one. The truth that has emerged is shocking. Let's go to Lalitpur and Shravasti…

It's been 2 months but Pooja is unaware of her marriage
Pooja is 9 years old and her husband is 12 years old. Both live in Lalitpur. They got married just 2 months ago. Pooja hasn't been to her in-laws yet. I don't even know much about marriage.

When asked what changed after the wedding, she simply replies, “Amma doesn't let her play outside anymore. We like to play with friends. But Amma says to stay home and learn to do chowka- bashan (utensil).”

Pooja got married when she was 9 years old. Family members said they would send him back after Sawan.

Suchita married at 13, first child in 15th grade, second in 16th
Suchita de Shravasti got married in 2011. She was then 13 years old. She became a mother at the age of 15. At the age of 16, the second child was born.

She says: ‘Both children had the operation, so there was a lot of pain. I couldn't walk for several days. From above, the children also had to be handled alone. I loved studying but my family got married. When I was young, I also happily married for new clothes. After having children, my desire to study also remained unfulfilled.

This photo is of Suchita's two sons. At present, the eldest son is 9 years old, the youngest is 8 years old.

When Savita was 9 years old, she got married, if her husband came near at night, she would have been scared.
This is the story of Savita. She lives in Shravasti. He is 32 now. The wedding took place when she was 9 years old. At that time, her husband was 20 years old.

She says, “I was 9 years old when my in-laws arrived. No one spoke to me properly here. For several days I just kept feeding myself for once. At night when my husband was trying to approach me, so I used to scream in panic. He beat me a lot. There was no place on my body where there were no marks of injury.

She further says, “I dealt with all of this for about 4 years. After that, I ran away from the in-laws' house. There was a grandmother in the village. Told him everything. I didn't have the courage to go home. Because the name of the parents would have been wrong. Nani married me to a boy for the second time. Now I am very happy with my husband.”

Savita married twice. Both marriages took place before the age of 15.

These were today's stories. After meeting him, we started very early to look for reasons to get married. They reached out to the families of these girls, to organizations working on child marriage. There are 3 big reasons behind this.

Reason 1: “Girls over 18 have to pay more dowry, so they would have married at an early age”
The head of an NGO working on child marriage in Lalitpur, on condition of anonymity, said: “Most people here are labourers. are poor. If the age of the girl was over 18, then boys aged 20-22 should be searched. Boys at this age begin to work. Therefore, girls have to pay more dowry. This is why they deliberately marry off girls at a young age.

We spoke to about 40 families from Kushwaha Samaj and Sahariya tribes in different villages of Shravasti and Lalitpur. He said that in our society girls get married at the age of 15-16. If the girl is over 18, then there is no boy in society for her.

Reason 2: “If something is wrong with the girls, they better go to their in-laws.
Fear of family is the main reason why girls get married early in Lalitpur. People said, “We work as laborers. All people stay away from home all day to earn money. The young girls stay home alone. Boys often attack by drinking alcohol. enter the houses.”

People say, “Sometimes the girls were abused. Then something is wrong with our girls. It is best to marry them at an early age. So she could go to her in-laws.” If anything went wrong here, the families meant that the girls became mothers before marriage.

Reason 3: “18-year-old girls fall in love, run away because they don't marry for love”
Residents of Sonbarsa village of Shravasti said: “Age is very bad these days. We trust our daughters. Not on the boys around. Boys seduce our little girls. She too falls in love with him.”

He said, “It tarnishes the family name. Because marriage for love is not considered good in our society. If you refuse the girls, they either run away with the boys or they hang on to the rope. That is why it is better to marry them at the right age and send them to the in-laws.

Finally, see this graph of child marriage figures in Uttar Pradesh for 2021.

In the report, out of 226 million child brides in India, 3.6 million cases were reported in Uttar Pradesh alone. After that came the report of ‘Save the Children-2022'. In which child marriage figures after Corona were feared to rise rapidly.

4 lines describing the condition of girls on child marriage
“Laying the burden of responsibility on my delicate shoulders,
Instead of a pen in his hands, he gave a broom-roller.
I was ignorant but I was buried under rituals,
Why has age made me a woman?

To note: The names of all child brides and their families involved in the story have been changed.