Kailash Satyarthi asks religious leaders to take stand on child marriage, says girls trafficked on pretext of marriage

New Delhi: Nobel Peace Prize winner and child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi on October 16 launched a nationwide campaign called ‘Child Marriage Free India’, arguably the world’s biggest-ever grassroots campaign against child marriage.

In an exclusive conversation with Firstpost, Kailash Satyarthi extensively spoke about child marriage and its associated evils that plague the country, society and economy.

Social evils cascade from child marriage

“India is a land of rituals. Religion is deep-rooted and of utter importance in our society. However, sometimes rituals justify social evils like child marriage. Young girls are trafficked in the name of marriage. One social evil gives rise to another. Therefore, we need to eradicate child marriage in order to curb other such inhuman practices too,” said Kailash.

Economic condition vs awareness

“People with poor economic conditions have often seen the girl child as a ‘burden’ and the need to marry her off as soon as possible is widely practiced among the underprivileged. Imparting awareness about child marriage to them is the need of the hour, " he added.

In the dark about the laws

“Most people living in far-off villages where evils like child marriage are widely practiced are not aware of laws. These people don’t know how practicing such things have legal consequences. Awareness surrounding laws on child marriage can largely help in bringing the number down. Also, lawmakers need to be held accountable if they fail to implement laws,” he added.

Community needs to take stand

“A lot of communities justify child marriage. We have 6,500 villages under this campaign where volunteers at the grassroots level are working and gathering information. These volunteers operate at a very intricate level and provide information through a helpline number and that helps us in providing our assistance further,” said Kailash.

He also urged religious leaders to take a stand against child marriages and ensure that the social evil is not continued.

‘Khaps’ are on board

“One of the landmark achievements of this campaign is that we have been successful in including Khap Panchayat in Haryana in this. They will help us make this campaign a success and eradicate child marriage from our society,” Kailash said.

Minimum marriageable age at 21 years

Meanwhile, the Noble laureate also said that governments were in sync with his campaign. “The proposal to increase the marriageable age among girls from 18 to 21 has complete support from our foundation,” he said.

Another Nobel Peace Laureate Leymah Gbowee, who is from Liberia, was among the attendees. She encouraged the young girls and lauded the Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation for its work.

Need for non-violent movement

Leymah Gbowee said, “A non-violent, peace movement is needed to address the issue of child marriage in India. An urgent need to involve community leaders in this campaign. These leaders have influence over their respective communities and can help in eradicating this evil practice.”

Gbowee also stressed on the role of media in eradicating social evils from society.

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