Pledges to end Child Marriage
In a unique initiative that could play an instrumental role in ending child marriage completely from the grassroots, 50 villages in 16 panchayats of Lakhisarai district of Bihar took a pledge to end child marriage and make the entire district free from child marriage. All the panchayats across the district organized awareness campaigns in their villages, with the villagers across all age groups,genders and communities taking pledge to not be a party to any child marriage in their village, with the ultimate goal to make entire Bihar child marriage free.
“Child marriage is a reality that unfortunately still stares at us. The incidents of minor children getting married are still high at grassroots and this campaign and the pledge is an important step towards generating awareness about the legal and social consequences of this crime. By educating our villages and empowering our children through education, we aim to make our district completely free from child marriage,” said one of the Mukhiya in Chanan .
Envisioning a state with zero child marriage cases, the Panchayat and Rural Development Department of Bihar had issued a notification recently directing all the panchayats across the state to organize ‘child marriage free Bihar’ programmes and ensure that all the villages take pledge to stop children from getting married before the legal age. Considering the prevalence of child marriages in villages, the notification can be a huge step in eliminating child marriage completely from the state of Bihar.