Women in Agriculture

Lesson 12 : Programmes for Girl Child -1

Abolition of Child Marriage

The Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929 (CMRA) provides for punishment to those who have allowed, contracted, performed or have been involved in a child marriage. In order to curb the evil practice there is also a need for the States to have a special child marriage prevention cell with requisite powers to prevent solemnization of child marriages, provide counseling services and facilitate the effective prosecution. The best method to prevent child marriages is to take adequate steps to ensure that they do not take place. For this, major advocacy and sensitization programme through all channels of communication and social dialogue, including motivation of local leadership multi-media campaign needs to be undertaken to reach out to all sections of the society especially targeting both parents and youth. The campaign would stress on the negative impact of child marriage in terms of early pregnancies, high rates of MMR, IMR, mortality and morbidity of the girl etc;