Assam’s Archana Baishnav has earned a precious education, after defying her parents and running away from her home, and proposed wedding, at a tender age.

She found help in her teacher when being forced to quit studies for marriage in Class VII, and managed to continue her education till Class X. Today, Archana dreams of becoming a police officer, and wants to fight the menace of child marriage in Assam.

The state’s child marriage statistics are grim. While the Assam government itself revealed that as many as 317 such cases were registered in 2017-18 – up from 96 the previous year - local social groups and child welfare organisations say that more than a 1,000 child marriages take place every year across the state.

Last month, social welfare minister Pramila Rani Brahma informed the state Assembly that there was a 10-fold rise in child marriages since 2015-16. For instance, Kamrup district, which had zero cases in 2015-16, recorded 59 cases in 2017-18.

One of the main social evils crippling Assam, child marriage is mostly prevalent among the tea tribes and minority community there. Muslims make up about 34 per cent of Assam’s population, according to the 2011 Census, while the tea tribes are estimated to be 15-20 per cent of the population.

Fed by poverty, patriarchy and illiteracy, child marriage is resulting in physical and economic disempowerment of teenage girls.

The Muslim community

Azizur Rahman, president of the All Assam Minority Students’ Union (AAMSU) which is working hard to check the practice of child marriage among the community, has singlehandedly stopped more than 300 such weddings across Assam in the last two years.

“There is a common tendency of child marriage in the minority community. The basic reasons are lack of education and economic backwardness. Kazis in the Muslim community sometimes allow people to go ahead with marriages between aged men and young girls. But we are against such weddings,” Rahman says.

Deputy Superintendent of Police of South Salmara-Mankachar District, Arif Ahmed, confirmed that at least four minor girls were rescued by the police in the last few months with help from AAMSU.

In many cases, kazis who performed the nuptials were arrested along with the parents on AAMSU’s complaint.

Sabina Begum, 16, from Islampur village is one such victim. She was rescued from her home on September 9 and her father Sharif Uddin arrested. Another girl, Razia Khatun, was rescued from Futamari village under Kalapani police outpost. Her father Ali Akbar was arrested along with the kazi.

Mahek Khan, a student of Class IX, was rescued from Manullapara village under South Salmara district on October 7, and Moriom Khatun, 13, was rescued from Arot gram village under Mankachar police station the same day, Ahmed said.

The tea garden community

The other community battling child marriage in Assam is the tea garden community.

Geeta Panday, president of Cha Janajati Mahila Suraksha Samiti, explained that most girls in such communities are married off between the ages of 12 and 16 and are forced to conceive immediately - preferably a male child. One of the reasons behind the early marriages is that young brides bring extra wages to their marital homes by picking leaves in tea gardens. For the bride’s parents, a daughter wedded off is one less mouth to feed.

Ajit Singh, former state minister and member of Tea Garden Development Committee, Cachar, echoed Panday on the issue. “There are more than 10,000 tea gardens in Assam and the tea tribe population is nearly 60 lakh. Child marriage is a regular practice among the garden workers. Economic backwardness and lack of education are the main reasons behind this, as also generations-old tradition,” he says.

He differed in pointing out that the number of registered child marriages may have increased in Assam but on ground, such weddings are decreasing.“Proper education and awareness via social media are helping the girls take a stand. They are opposing their parent’s decisions and even succeeding,” Singh adds. The minister mentioned the case of Archana Baishnav of Silchar who refused to get married at an early age.

“Archana took a stand against her parents a few years ago. She was in the seventh standard when she was forced to get married. She wanted to continue her studies, so she ran away. Her teachers Chanda Nath and Gautam Das, the urban coordinator of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Mission in Cachar, supported her and gave her shelter. Later, they managed to convince her parents. Archana passed the Class 10 examination under the State Education Board of Assam with good marks last year. Now she wishes to become a police officer,” Singh says.

On the trials faced by teenage girls when burdened with marital responsibilities, advocate and women’s rights activist Tuhina Sharma pointed out that young brides are neither physically nor emotionally fit to become wives and mothers and also face the complications of early pregnancy.

There is no single instance where the parents or family members have opposed such marriages, Sharma says, adding that domestic violence is common in such marriages as the brides are emotionally too vulnerable to fight for their fundamental rights.

Many social organisations are reaching out to parents in tea tribes across Assam and trying to convince them to stand against child marriage. “But without mass awareness and proper education, it is impossible to stop the trend,” Sharma insists. 

Child brides and Assam’s NRC

AAMSU’s Rahman connected child marriage with the ongoing National Register of Citizens’ (NRC) update process in Assam.

“Of 40 lakh NRC left-outs, more than five lakhs are victims of child marriage, according to our observation. Women married off before 18 are not able to establish links with their father in the family tree procedure as they didn’t get a chance to register their name in the voter list along with their parents. As a result, they are being left out from the final draft of the NRC, putting their identity in danger,” he explains.

Congress member and MP Sushmita Dev from Silchar criticised the Assam government for not acting tough on such families. “According to reports, it’s the Muslim community and tea tribes practising child marriage. It puts focus on the deprived communities in Assam and I strongly condemn the state government for ignoring them,” Dev says.

Assam Branch of Indian Tea Association (ABITA) is spreading awareness against child marriage through its centres in various state districts. Monoj Dhanwar of ABITA informed that they had as many as 101 centres through which they were trying to educate the tea garden workers to fight social backwardness.

In India, the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act states that a girl can’t marry before the age of 18, and a boy before 21.

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