The thorny issues surrounding the practice of child marriage – cultural tradition or economic necessity? - Joni Hillman

The famously outspoken Euro MP Baroness Emma Nicholson’s latest crusade is against the widespread tradition of ‘child brides’ amongst Roma (or gypsy) communities in Romania. Although the legal age of consent for females in Romania is 15 and brides (and grooms) must be 16 before walking down the aisle, the law is largely ignored by Roma families. Indeed, Nicholson’s initial reason for flagging up the issue with such gusto was that the king of the gypsies in Romania, Florin Cioaba, had married off his own daughter at the tender age of 12, causing an uproar in the western media.

I tell of this incident not because it is particularly unusual or interesting, but because of the reaction of Cioaba to Nicholson’s outrage, which I think has some parallels with the west’s reaction to the practice of child marriage in the developing world and specifically in India, from where the Roma migrated over a thousand years ago.

Cioaba has accused the European Union of hypocrisy, claiming that the commotion surrounding his daughter’s marriage covers up the lack of attention paid to the social and economic difficulties faced by the millions of Roma living in Central and Eastern Europe. The king laments that the EU ‘should be thinking about the millions of Roma who have nothing to eat and no jobs and no home, who live on the street, who beg, who suffer ill-health. I don’t see Europe making such a fuss, or acting so quickly over those issues.’ Good point. Like the problem of female circumcision in Africa, the myriad of other social problems that exist doesn’t make the practice any more acceptable but does raise the important matter of priorities. Child marriage and genital mutilation are unacceptable and grotesque but so are famine, illiteracy, poor sanitation, unemployment, misery, domestic violence, war, poverty, unfair trade laws, disease, rape – I could go on. If the west got up in arms about these issues as much as they do about child marriage and female circumcision then perhaps the world could progress a little further towards those lofty ideals of equality and an end to human suffering.

Calls from the west to end what is seen as the barbaric practice of marrying both teenagers and children as young as four ignore the basic determinants of such customs, namely tradition and economics. From the tradition perspective, many child marriages take place on the auspicious day of Akha Teej in July or August, a day considered to be so lucky that it is not necessary for a priest to decide on the best day for the marriage (thus saving the father of the bride a few rupees). From the economic angle, children cost money to feed, clothe and educate, money that is often scarce and which, with the stigma attached to the ‘girl child’ in India and other developing countries, families are often loathe to ‘waste’ on educating their female children; the majority of girls who are married at a young age are pulled out of school and have little chance of returning once they become wives. If there was any further doubt as to the motivations of parents, Manoj Satpathy of the Manab Seba Parishad, an Orissa-based NGO, categorically states that ‘it is poverty that compels people to go for an early marriage of their children.’

Despite the financial burden of paying the sometimes extortionate cost of a dowry for each daughter, a father will feel that he is offloading what he considers as the encumbrance of a girl child onto the groom’s family. In return, they receive a girl who may be too young to bear children at the time of the wedding but will be a source of free labour; in some respects, child marriage and slavery are close bedfellows. Although many of the youngest brides (those who are only four or five when they marry) return to their own families until adolescence, this is not always the case for pre-teens and young adolescents.

Campaigning for an end to child marriage is all well and good but only if this position is informed by a close understanding of the wider causes of such a practice. The customs that lead to 57% of Indian girls marrying before their eighteenth birthday will not diminish without a concerted effort on the part of the western development industry and, more importantly, local organisations, NGOs and the Indian government to inform parents about the importance of education and later marriage for the health and well-being of their daughters.

Childbirth amongst physically immature girls is a major threat to their health and life expectancy; indeed, UNICEF has calculated that pregnancy-related deaths are the main cause of female mortality amongst 15-19 year olds worldwide. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that problems such as haemorrhaging, obstructed labour and obstetric fistula make girls in developing countries aged 10 to 14 five times more likely to die in childbirth than mothers in their early twenties. Girls are often married to much older men and are therefore at risk from contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, not to mention the pressure to prove their fertility early in the marriage, which, if unsuccessful, can lead to accusations of barrenness and sometimes abandonment of the wife. According to journalist John F Burns, child marriage is cited as one of the principle reasons why Indian women are so far behind in the realm of women’s rights. Its contribution to high birth rates, poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy, infant mortality and low female life expectancy single it out as an important area to focus on in India’s seemingly never-ending struggle for an improvement in the standard of living for the 80% of the population trying to survive on less than $2 a day.

Many Indians see the historical roots of child marriage lying in the need to protect young unmarried girls from being carried off by the Muslim invaders of a thousand years ago. Hindu communities began to marry their girls at very young ages to prevent their rape or kidnap by the raiders. Modern, yet conservative, Indian society now claims that unmarried adolescent girls will fall into the trap of allowing themselves to be ‘spoiled’, and chant the AIDS generation mantra, also common in Africa, that an infected man who has sex with a virgin will be cured. In this climate of ignorance the importance of education cannot be underestimated.

Indian legislation is clear on the matter of child marriage. The 1929 Child Marriage Restraint Act, enacted during the Raj, clearly stipulates that girls must be 18 and boys 21 before a legally binding marriage can take place. However, according to Vaishali Sood, who campaigns against child marriage, the Act is being ‘totally violated’, prompting the Human Rights Law Network in India to file a writ petition to hold both government officials and policemen responsible for child marriage celebrations (evidence that they have failed to prevent the nuptials taking place), and prosecuting the boy groom’s family for slavery and sexual abuse of the young bride. The legal implications for those involved in child marriage could be even graver when you consider the contravention of human rights that it presents; article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that ‘marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.’ Somehow it is difficult to imagine a tiny four year old girl agreeing to enter into a situation that couldn’t be further from the wedded bliss we all expect from our own marriages.

However, the Child Marriage Restraint Act has proved to be a toothless weapon in the long-running battle to end this practice. A combination of easily corruptible officials, or those who turn a blind eye, and the absence of a credible punishment threat mean that enforcement of the act has become severely diminished. The only deterrent is a maximum three-month prison sentence and a fine of up to one Rs. 1,000 – not much of a penalty for virtually selling your daughter into slavery.

In this case, as in so many others, perhaps the rest of India should follow the lead of the southern state of Kerala. The statistics speak for themselves: the Institute of Health Systems claims that only 5% of girls under 18 are married, compared to the Indian average of 37% which rises to 58% in the state of Bihar (according to a recent Times of India article). Perhaps the high female literacy rate (85%, www.globaleye.org.uk) in the tropical paradise of Kerala has something to do with this apparent reluctance to rush into nuptials. Or it could be because, compared to other areas of India, and indeed the world, Keralan women are respected, seen as assets to society and their family rather than burdens, and their parents given a ‘bride price’ on marriage, rather than having to stump up a huge dowry.

Only time will tell, but it seems that education and a respect for the rights and talents of women are the keys to making a dent in the horrifically high child marriage figures in India.

Sources:

www.globaleye.org.uk

The Institute of Health Systems, India www.ihsnet.org.in

The Times of India www.timesofindia.com

‘Child Marriage Means Child Labour For Daughters’ – Sudha Ramachandran, Panos Features www.panos.org.uk

The World Bank www.worldbank.com

UNICEF www.unicef.org

The Kaiser Family Foundation www.kff.org

‘Child Marriages, Though Illegal, Persist in India’ – John F Burns www.ishipress.com/indiamar.htm

‘Gypsies Defy Calls to Ban Child Brides’ – Callum Macrae, The Observer http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1227799,00.html