Childline intervened to stop 13 child marriages in the district from April 2019 to March 2020.
Fifteen calls regarding child marriages were received at the Childline helpline during this period. However, information on two cases was received only after the marriage. The calls pertained to fixing marriages or engagements by parents.
While one of the girls was in the 13-15 age group, the remaining 14 were in the 16-18 age group.
Two grooms held
The 13 marriages were stopped after total injunction was taken by Child Development Project Officers. The grooms were arrested in the other two cases.
Twelve of the girls were Hindus, two Muslims, and one Christian.
While in one case, the girl herself made a call to the Childline helpline number 1098, information on other cases were passed on by school and anganwadi teachers, friends, neighbours or panchayat members.
In six of the cases, ‘love affair’ was the reason for the proposed marriage, but in nine cases the families had arranged the matrimony.
According to Childline authorities, in some cases, children eloped to get married. In others, families fixed the marriages after getting to know about the relationships.
In some cases, such as separated parents or in the case of single parents, they preferred to get their wards married off early and fixed engagements.
In a couple of cases, parents did not give much importance to the legal marriageable age and found nothing out of place in daughters getting married before 18.
Childline also intervened in 1,105 abuse cases, including child sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, child labour, begging, corporal punishment and so on, during the period. There were 11 cases of child labour and 18 cases of begging.
The number of child sexual abuse cases reported to it came down from 195 in 2018-19 to 174 in 2019-20.
As many as 538 children who needed emotional support and guidance were given counselling.