India emerges world’s child marriage capital

Craterloads · 11 Oct 2012 at 21:21

In the letter, the UN agencies said, "More than 40% of the world's child marriages happen in India.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...ild-marriage-capital/articleshow/16774381.cms

Quite a disgusting attitude towards children over in India especially considering it's an emerging super power. 2 in 5 child marriages worldwide take place in India. Surely this can't be coincidence and it's something the country has to look at as a whole, a change to their cultural beliefs.

Whether it’s a cultural issue mixed with religious ones, it’s not something that should be accepted in the 21st century.

Pawnless Endgame · 11 Oct 2012 at 21:27

Age of consent is one thing, but it's arranged marriages (found in many cultures) that bug me the most. Children should be allowed to date other children as they please (like we did in schools) and adults should be allowed to marry other adults as they please.

Draeger · 11 Oct 2012 at 21:28

Craterloads · 11 Oct 2012 at 21:29

Monserrat said:
Age of consent is one thing, but it's arranged marriages (found in many cultures) that bug me the most. Children should be allowed to date other children as they please (like we did in schools) and adults should be allowed to marry other adults as they please.

An arranged marriage is one thing, which is fine as is consenting.

A child cannot consent to marriage, so presumably the issue here is forced marriage.

sigma · 11 Oct 2012 at 21:44

Lack of education + lots of poor people + strong religious beliefs + huge population = lots of problems.

Craterloads · 11 Oct 2012 at 22:28

sigma said:
Lack of education + lots of poor people + strong religious beliefs + huge population = lots of problems.

True, hopefully this will serve as a wake up call to the government, so changes can be made. Not that they were not all ready aware of the situation.

Gerard · 11 Oct 2012 at 22:30

Draeger said:
<insert tasteless Jimmy Saville joke here>

Doubt he'd be interested in the marriage aspect

Though im sure if they offered home trials that old ******* would be first in line (despite being 6 feet under).

bhavv · 11 Oct 2012 at 22:50

Not really sure how this has anything to do with the government's stance on marriage there:

Marriageable age in India: 21 for males and 18 for females.[34] If any partner(s) engages in marriage at a younger age, (s)he can ask for the marriage to be declared void / annulled. A recent recommendation by the Law Commission aims to equalize the marriage age for males and females to 18,[35] Official policy automatically declares marriages under 16 as "null and void", while marriages at the age of 16 or 17 are "voidable".

The issue is the huge rural / uneducated population, and most of the country simply being a crap hole. On the other hand there is no legal age of consent in Saudi Arabia, and 8-12 year old girls are legally forced into marriage with men up to and over the age of 80, but the population is nowhere near as large:

http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/brink...ge-still-an-issue-in-Saudi-Arabia-3270366.php

Also, its worth looking into the proportion of underage marriages compared to the countries population:

http://www.icrw.org/child-marriage-facts-and-figures

While the proportion of underage marriages in India is very high, it still only ranks as the 17th highest. Yet due to its population size, it would rank very highly on the global scale.

Castiel · 11 Oct 2012 at 22:54

You are aware that they are defining Child Marriage as being any marriage where the person is under 18.....and the law states the marriageable age is 18 for girls, 21 for boys...unless they are Muslim when it is reduced to 15 (high court ruling). Marriages for non-Muslims under 16 are automatically voided.

There are countries such as Canada who allow (in limited situations) marriage at 15.

It seems to be a cultural issue across much of Southern Asia and in some parts of the Middle East and Northern Africa rather than just limited to India and I think we should be more concerned with forced marriages rather than simply marriages where the person(s) are under 18.

Craterloads · 11 Oct 2012 at 22:58

bhavv said:
Not really sure how this has anything to do with the government's stance on marriage there:

The issue is the huge rural / uneducated population, and most of the country simply being a crap hole. On the other hand there is no legal age of consent in Saudi Arabia, and 8-12 year old girls are legally forced into marriage with men up to and over the age of 80, but the population is nowhere near as large:

http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/brink...ge-still-an-issue-in-Saudi-Arabia-3270366.php

Also, its worth looking into the proportion of underage marriages compared to the countries population:

http://www.icrw.org/child-marriage-facts-and-figures

While the proportion of underage marriages in India is very high, it still only ranks as the 17th highest. Yet due to its population size, it would rank very highly on the global scale.

2/5 child marriages take place in India, it's hard to get away from and it's a pretty disturbing figure.

Well it's a cultural thing considering the government and population have encouraged child rape/marriages to ironically reduce the number of child rapes occurring in the country. Quite absurd logic really :confused:

Insisting that marrying minor girls was not a solution to protect them against rape

"Child marriage is not a solution to protecting girls from sexual crimes including rape,"

http://news.outlookindia.com/items.aspx?artid=777909

Maybe they should look at the core of the problem of child rape instead finding alternatives to legalise such behavior.

bhavv · 11 Oct 2012 at 23:01

Castiel said:
You are aware that they are defining Child Marriage as being any marriage where the person is under 18

Thats exactly why I prefer to use the term 'underage marriage' rather than 'child marriage'. IMO a 16-18 year old is not a child, and many jurisdictions allow 16 year olds to legally marry.

If they wanted accurate figures on 'child marriages', the age group looked into should be 15 years and under only.

This issue is also entirely dependent on each individual countries law. A 20 year old male being married in India is actually under the legal age there, and information of such marriages could be added to the countries list of underage marriages based on their jurisdiction.

Whereas in Canada, marriage is legal from 15 years old with parental consent ... Is that something that should not be accepted in the 21st century too then?

bhavv · 11 Oct 2012 at 23:04

Craterloads said:
2/5 child marriages take place in India, it's hard to get away from and it's a pretty disturbing figure.

.....

You did read the following right?

Castiel said:
You are aware that they are defining Child Marriage as being any marriage where the person is under 18.....and the law states the marriageable age is 18 for girls, 21 for boys...unless they are Muslim when it is reduced to 15 (high court ruling). Marriages for non-Muslims under 16 are automatically voided.

Craterloads said:
Well it's a cultural thing considering the government and population have encouraged child rape/marriages to ironically reduce the number of child rapes occurring in the country. Quite absurd logic really

The government has done no such thing, what you are reading is one random village idiot's opinion (from some stupid 'caste council' as well), and there are quite a lot of those in India (like more than half of the population).

Glaucus · 11 Oct 2012 at 23:05

Craterloads said:
Quite a disgusting attitude towards children over in India especially considering it's an emerging super power.

Emerging superpower means nothing. It's just like china. They have a huge economy but they have an even bigger population. Both country's are extremely poor per head compared to western country's. due to that lack of wealth you don't have the disposable income to match are laws and services. As well as its take a gradual progression to improve such things, we didn't snap our fingers and solve our issues over night and even with outer wealth there's still many areas were lacking in which are still improving gradually.

It would be interesting to see what life experience has on these figures as well.
Do areas of extreme poverty with low life expectancy also correlate with the biggest child marriages.
Or is it the rich areas and money buys.

Take the slum in Kenya, life expectency is just 30 and over half the population is under 15, but then again would they even get married?

Craterloads · 11 Oct 2012 at 23:09

bhavv said:
.....

The government has done no such thing, what you are reading is one random village idiot's opinion, and there are quite a lot of those in India (like more than half of the population).

That was was from the UN, not some random village idiot.

18% are married by 15 years of age.[2] These marriages are often performed without the consent of the girls involved in the marriage.

So just less than half of the child marriages are with children under the age of 15.

bhavv · 11 Oct 2012 at 23:12

Craterloads said:
That was was from the UN, not some random village idiot.

So just less than half of the child marriages are with children under the age of 15.

Which means 22.25% of the entire countries population, and also Muslim women in India are allowed to legally marry at 15.

Which is probably nowhere near close as a proportion of the individual countries figures for under 15 yo marriages compared to Saudi Arabia.

Castiel · 11 Oct 2012 at 23:14

bhavv said:
You did read that right?.

I'm not sure what you mean?

I have just read that of the 47% of child marriages in India, 18% by the time they are 15.

The UN defines child marriage as forced marriage under the age of 18, as there can be no consent under that age as they believe no-one under 18 is capable of giving their consent.....so effectively the UN are saying ALL marriages where the person has gotten married under the age of 18 is by definition a forced marriage....

Hmmmm, not so sure I think that a 16-17 year is incapable of deciding for themselves, not all are mature enough, but to say all are forced is a bit strong.

Under 16 is another matter entirely.

bhavv · 11 Oct 2012 at 23:15

Castiel said:
I'm not sure what you mean?

Not you, Craterloads. I changed the post to make it a little clearer.

Craterloads · 11 Oct 2012 at 23:15

bhavv said:
Which means 22.25% of the entire countries population, and also Muslim women in India are allowed to legally marry at 15.

Hinduism is the largest religious grouping in India; compose 80.5% of the population.

Castiel · 11 Oct 2012 at 23:16

bhavv said:
Not you, Craterloads.

Oh right...I read it as addressed to the quote rather than the quote being illustrative....apologies.

bhavv · 11 Oct 2012 at 23:17

Craterloads said:
Hinduism is the largest religious grouping in India; compose 80.5% of the population.

And what does this have to do with anything that was said about India's legal ages for marriage?

80.5% of the population are Hindu ... and 22.25% of marriages happen for under 15 year olds according to the figures you have provided (also accounting for legal marriage at 15 yo for the Muslim population).