The act of increasing the minimum legal age of marriage for women will not be able to prevent child marriage in India. Rather, the recent change in the Special Marriage Act, 1954 and the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 remains cosmetic in nature as it does not address the problem of child marriage in its totality. Traditional laws and customs still prevail in many parts of India. At the same time, even after more than seven decades of Independence, we have not been able to provide adequate educational opportunities to girls. Poverty also plays a crucial role in child marriages. If all these issues are not tackled simultaneously, any change in the existing laws will not be truly effective. Before proceeding further, it should be noted that attendance of girl students after the reopening of schools, has dropped drastically all over the country as many girls were forced into marriage. On enquiry, it has been found that many such nuptial cases were necessitated as a result of acute poverty. Due to the pandemic, the families suffered huge financial losses and thus chose to reduce dependents by getting the girls married. Quite strangely, such incidents happened even in states like West Bengal and Kerala, wherein many welfare schemes for girls have been put in place for quite some time now. The Kanyashree Scheme of the West Bengal Government which aims at improving the status of adolescent girls from disadvantaged families through small cash transfers even received recognition and praise from the United Nations. But the recent happenings prove that there are still large lapses in the undertakings and thus the schemes must be reworked and be better targeted towards those who need it most.
As per the recent report released by the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), during the last five years the percentage of child marriages has come down merely four per cent despite various efforts by authorities. It is too much to expect the percentage to go down drastically just with the increase of legal age of marriage. Another stumbling block in this regard is the existence of various personal laws in the country. According to some of these laws, marriage is legal even for minors who have attained puberty. The fact that the students of 16 universities have advocated for a hike in the legal age of marriage indicates that education may play a crucial role in stopping child marriages. This is why literacy rate among girls should be increased. More scholarships and stipends should be arranged so that they can continue their studies and the number of schools and colleges for girls also need to be increased in number. At the same time, efforts should be put into establishing avenues for financial independence and security. The need of the hour is to take concrete and measurable steps towards non-discrimination against girls if we are truly sincere in putting an end to child marriage in India and the world over.