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Empowering Women or Curbing Rights?
Increasing the minimum marriage age is not just tokenistic, but harmful.
Madhu Mehra writes:
The Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, 2021 is flawed on many counts. Rather than provisioning welfare measures to support girls at risk of early marriage, the bill opts for raising the minimum marriage age for girls from 18 to 21 years, overriding family laws to enforce this. The raise in marriage age is presented as a solution for female malnutrition, early school dropout, declining workforce participation, and girls’ empowerment. Not only do these claims fail to stand when tested against data, the use of child marriage and allied laws, as well as international standards, but the move portends harm.
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