According to a report by Young Lives Research to Policy Centre based on the National Family Health Survey 2015-16, West Bengal tops the list in Child Marriage with 25.6 per cent of girls married before the age of 18. In the ongoing West Bengal Assembly Elections 2021, although every political party has raised concerns about education and women’s welfare in the state, however, issues like early child marriage haven’t made the cut.
Suprakash Majumdar, TwoCircles.net
West Bengal: Twenty-one-year-old Rekha (name changed) wakes up in the middle of the night. A child is sleeping beside her. She touches the child’s forehead and then quickly reaches for the medicine pouch. The fever was back. Her child has been suffering from typhoid for the last 25 days and she barely has any money left for the child’s treatment.
Rekha is a Dalit girl who was married off by her aunt at the age of 16 in 2016. She was an 11th standard student at the time. “I wanted to study and support my family by getting a good job,” Rekha told TwoCircles.net.
Rekha is one of the thousands of other victims from the eastern Indian state of West Bengal who are forced to marry at an early age. Some of the girls get married as early as 12.
According to a report by Young Lives Research to Policy Centre based on the National Family Health Survey 2015-16, West Bengal tops the list in Child Marriage with 25.6 per cent of girls married before the age of 18.
In the ongoing West Bengal Assembly Elections 2021, every political party has raised concerns about education and women’s welfare in the state, however, issues like early child marriage haven’t made the cut.
The Bhartiya Janata Party’s (BJP) manifesto for the elections, which India’s Home Minister Amit Shah boldly called the ‘Sankalp Patra’ (Promise Letter), states that if BJP comes to power in the state, it will ensure free education from ‘KG to PG’.
“It (child marriage) is very common in Birbhum district (of West Bengal). You will find girls who are forced to get married in their teenage years,” says Rekha.
Rekha was told that her husband works for Kolkata Police and is from a wealthy family. After marriage, she found out that her husband is unemployed and the family is not as wealthy as they had claimed.
Rekha alleges that she was “mistreated, beaten and tortured by her in-laws and husband” only because she wanted to study and appear in Higher Secondary examinations.
“When I was pregnant, they forced me to do all the work in the house. I had to study for my higher secondary exams and every day my husband used to come and fight with me for no reason. Because of this, I couldn’t study. I wasn’t allowed to talk to the neighbours as well. The beating was a regular thing,” Rekha says.
Later Rekha’s parents took her to their home for her to help study for the exams. “Doctors said that either they could either save me or my child because of the beatings. I faced many complications in my pregnancy. Thankfully, both I and my child are fine,” she says.
According to the Young Lives Research to Policy Centre, in districts like Kochbihar, Maldah, Dakshin Dinachpur, Birbhum, Murshidabad, Nadia, Purulia, Purba Midnapur and North & South 24 Parganas, more than 25 per cent girls get married before the age of 19.
Many reports claim this practice is more common in tribal areas than urban areas but activists deny these claims.
Twenty-six-year old Shilpa (name changed) was married off at the age of 12. She is from the Nadia district of West Bengal. She claims that she faced domestic violence at her in-laws’ house.
“My husband was very abusive towards me. My in-laws used to treat me like a maid,” Shilpa tells TwoCircles.net.
Shilpa recalls an incident.
“Once I was going in a train with my husband and few men boarded our coach which was almost empty as it was a late-night train. The men started to abuse my husband and started to beat him. I was very weak at that time so I couldn’t help. My husband then ran to another coach leaving me behind. One of the men looked at me and said I am a strong woman and I should join their movement. I knew what they were talking about. I told them that I have to think about it and then they gave me the number to contact them and then left,” Shilpa says.
Before 2010, districts like Nadia had a strong Naxalite presence. Debasis, West Bengal Coordinator of Ekta Parishad told TwoCircles.net that young girls are often targeted by the Naxals.
“I used to get such cases before but I don’t know if it still happens,” says Debasis.
Shilpa says that she considered the option of joining. “At one point I wanted to join them and then kill my husband and in-laws but I knew the risks,” she says.
Shilpa divorced her husband two years ago and now lives with her daughter.
Anuradha, an activist who works on child protection in Birbhum District, says that people don’t want to talk about this problem.
“We know that this happens everywhere. When we go on the ground to talk to people who are planning to marry off their teenage daughters, they simply lie about the girl’s age and at that point we can’t do anything as we can’t force the family unless the girl has any problems,” says Anuradha.
She says that even though all the political parties like TMC and BJP talks about women, it is just a facade.
“No party can openly criticize the practice of child marriage or they will lose the election,” says Anuradha.
Birbhum district has the highest number of child marriage case in West Bengal, according to the Young Lives Research to Policy Centre report.
“35.2 per cent girls under 19 get married,” the report says.
All the political parties have added fancy schemes for women in their manifestos. BJP has promised 33 per cent jobs for women in state government, free education, free transport and healthcare for women. BJP has announced financial aid schemes for girl children but does not remotely mention anything about child marriages.
“We will ensure the education of the girls so that they can stand on their feet. This will reduce the problem of child marriage as the people won’t think of their daughters as a burden,” says Dhruva Saha, Birbhum District President of BJP.
According to Dhruva, TMC hasn’t talked about this issue. “Because the problem of child marriage is more common among Muslims and if TMC talks about it, they wouldn’t win the elections,” he explains.
When TwoCircles.net asked him about no mention of the issue in the BJP manifesto, he said, “When free education for everyone is brought in, all these issues will go away”.
For Rekha, lack of education is not the only problem that causes child marriage.
“I am educated, my father is educated but I was still forced to marry,” she says.
Anuradha says that when she went to the political parties for support during the lockdown, as child marriages increased that time, every party refused to support citing coming elections.
TMC’s manifesto has many promises for women like monthly monetary aid to women head of families.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee told Economic Times in March that many things only exist in Bengal. “We give 731 days of maternity leaves because we believe in women empowerment,” she had said.
TwoCircles.net reached out to many TMC candidates but no one had an answer for the issue and TMC’s plan to counter the issue.
While all political parties are boldly raising issues like education and women’s safety, none of them has a clear vision on how to solve this problem and most of them refuse to even address it openly.
Rekha has left her husband’s house in 2018 and now lives with her parents. The husband’s family has filed several cases against her on the counts of harassment and defamation. She is still waiting for justice.
“Everyone talks about us but no one wants to do anything for us as it threatens their power. I will continue my struggle and also fight for other girls like me so that they don’t face what I have faced,” Rekha added.