The story so far: The Union government marked the first anniversary of its Bal Vivah Mukt Bharat Abhiyan earlier this month with a 100-day awareness campaign for a country free of child marriage, as part of its commitment to the UN to end child marriage by 2030. Though there has been significant progress in this effort over the last decade, it has been uneven across States and socio-economic groups, with a good way to go to meet the UN’s target.
Child marriages on the decline in India: Report
What is the global situation?
The fifth UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) is to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Within this SDG, Target 5.3 is to eliminate all harmful practices, including child marriage, as well as early and forced marriages, and female genital mutilation. Progress on child marriage is monitored using the indicator of the proportion of women between the ages of 20 and 24 years who were married before they turned 18. Girls Not Brides, a global partnership, warns that the child marriage target will also impact other SDGs. “Unless we make significant progress on ending child marriage, we will fall short on at least nine of the SDGs, including those related to poverty, food security, health, education, gender equality, economic growth, climate action, and peace and justice,” it said. In 2023, UNICEF estimated that 64 crore girls got married in childhood, with a whopping third of them in India alone. It added that progress needs to happen 20 times faster than it has been to reach the 2030 target.
