- World
- Oct 01
California becomes 18th US state to ban child marriage
• California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a Bill to ban child marriage in the state.
• The Bill repeals provisions that allow a minor to enter into a marriage or domestic partnership with parental consent and sets the state’s minimum marriage and domestic partnership age at 18.
• In the US, there is no federal law regarding child marriage.
• Each state establishes its own requirements, and some have set no minimum age for marriage.
• In 2018, Delaware and New Jersey became the first states to outlaw marriage before age 18 with no exceptions, followed by:
• Minnesota and Pennsylvania in 2020.
• New York and Rhode Island in 2021.
• Massachusetts in 2022.
• Connecticut, Michigan and Vermont in 2023.
• New Hampshire, Virginia and Washington in 2024.
• Maine, Missouri and Oregon in 2025.
• Oklahoma in 2026.
• California becomes the 18th state in the country to ban child marriage.
Child marriages in India
• The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) compiles and publishes the data on the number of cases of child marriage registered under The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act (PCMA), 2006 in its publication ‘Crime in India’.
• As per information available with NCRB, the number of cases registered under Prohibition of Child Marriage Act (PCMA) during the years 2020, 2021 and 2022 are 785, 1,050 and 1,002 respectively.
• Child marriage has been on a steady decline in India. The prevalence of child marriages in India has halved since the enactment of the PCMA in 2006 from 47 per cent to 27 per cent in 2015-16 and 23.3 per cent in 2019-2021.
• The decline in child marriage in India is in line with the global trend. In the past decade, the proportion of girls married as children has dropped by 15 per cent. Despite these enormous strides globally and in India, no region in the world is on track to attain the SDG-5 target (Gender Equality).
• It is estimated that the progress in reducing child marriage would need to be 12 times faster than the rate observed in the past decade to achieve the SDG-5 target.
What is child marriage? What are its driving factors?
• Child marriage is a social evil, and its commission is a criminal offence.
• Child marriage is the phenomenon of children being married before they attain the minimum legal age under the law. Globally, children continue – despite legal norms to the contrary – to be married before they reach the age of 18 years.
• Globally, one in every five girls is formally married or in an informal union, before reaching age 18.
• Section 28 of Prohibition of Child Marriage Act (PCMA) defines child marriage as a marriage to which either of the contracting parties is a child. Girls below the age of 18 and boys below the age of 21 are deemed to be children under the PCMA.
• Patriarchy, gender inequality, poverty and lack of education and employment lead to child marriage.
• Child marriages persist due to societal perceptions and economic pressures. Investment in a girl’s education is frequently regarded as wasteful, leading some families to end schooling early and consider marriage instead. Poverty and structural inequalities, including gender, caste, and class, further drive child marriages.
• Many parents wish to marry their girl child early to guard against any aspersions on the girl’s virtue of virginity and to mitigate the economic costs associated with raising a child, payment of dowry and conducting a wedding.
• The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child regards child marriage as a violation of human rights.
• Elimination of child, early and forced marriages has been committed to by 193 nations, including India under target 5 of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Prohibition of Child Marriage Act (PCMA)
• In 1921, the League of Nations held a conference on the trafficking of women and recommended raising the age of consent to 21 years for girls.
• In 1922, Bakshi Sohanlal unsuccessfully tried to raise the age of consent to 14 by introducing a Bill. Bills that sought to raise the age of consent were introduced and thrown out regularly for five years thereafter.
• Among these Bills was an Age of Marriage Bill which was sought to be introduced by Ranglal Jajodia in 1924 in the Legislative Assembly. The Bill prescribed a minimum age before which no marriage could take place. This was a shift from the approach taken by other reformers and legislators of not interfering with the age of marriage but to merely protect girls from forced sex by raising the age of consent in penal laws.
• While this Bill was never introduced, a similar Bill was introduced by Haribilas Sarda in 1927 after another failed attempt to raise the age of consent by Hari Singh Gour.
• The ‘Sarda Bill’ was circulated widely to attract opinions. After much debate, the Sarda Bill was enacted as the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929 and received the assent of the Governor-General on October 1, 1929.
• The Act continued to govern the law on the age of marriage till Parliament enacted the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006.
• The PCMA retained the age of marriage as 21 for males and 18 for females.
• The Act provides for governing parties to a child marriage after its commission, punitive measures against offenders of the Act as well as provisions for the prevention of child marriage.
• The PCMA prescribes punishment for three classes of persons, namely:
i) An adult groom in a child marriage.
ii) Persons involved in the solemnisation of child marriage.
iii) Persons who promote or permit the solemnisation of child marriage.
• The maximum punishment prescribed for all three classes is rigorous imprisonment of two years and a fine of Rs 1 lakh.
• Unlike many social legislations, the PCMA does not prescribe a mandatory minimum punishment for committing an offence under the Act.
• Section 15 of the PCMA stipulates that all offences under the Act are cognizable and non-bailable.
• Section 16 of Prohibition of Child Marriage Act (PCMA) authorises the state government to appoint for the whole state, or such part there of as may be specified, an officer or officers to be known as the ‘Child Marriage Prohibition Officers’ (CMPO) having jurisdiction over the area or areas specified in the notification.