Essentially, banning child marriage. This is done through specific laws such as the Child Marriage Prohibition Act 2006 and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012. Under the Prevention of Child Marriage Act, any marriage before the prescribed age is illegal and perpetrators of forced child marriages can be punished. Estimates of child marriage rates in India vary widely from source to source. This is also reflected in the NFHS 5 report, which mentions that 14.7% of all marriages in urban areas are child marriages, much better than in rural areas at 27%. The same report also mentions that the percentage of women falling into the category of teenage pregnancies in urban areas was much lower at 3.8%, compared to 7.9% in rural areas. This shows a clear gap between urban and rural areas, due to better education and health conditions in urban areas. By raising the age of marriage for women to 21, the proposed legislation aligns the legal age of marriage for men and women. It contains amendments to the personal status laws of different communities regarding the age of marriage in order to ensure uniformity in this regard.
According to Irani, raising the age of marriage for women would help reduce the incidence of teenage pregnancy. In June 2020, the Union Ministry for Women and Child Development established a 10-member committee, headed by Jaya Jaitly, to focus on issues related to the age of childbearing, the need to reduce the maternal mortality rate, improving nutritional levels, and other related issues. Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke in his Independence Day 2020 speech about his government`s plan to raise the legal age of marriage for girls. In December 2020, the Jaitly Committee presented its recommendation to raise the legal age of marriage for girls from 18 to 21. In 1978, the government last raised the age of marriage for girls between the ages of 15 and 18. This was achieved by amending the Child Marriage Restriction Act of 1929, also known as the Sharda Act. In line with the recommendations of the Jaitly Commission, the Union Government has now decided to further raise the age of marriage for women. Subsequently, on 21 December 2021, the Child Marriage Prohibition (Amendment) Bill 2021 was introduced in the Lok Sabha. The Bill amends the Child Marriage Prohibition Act 2006 to raise the minimum age for marriage for women. In addition to raising the minimum age of marriage for women from 18 to 21, the bill also provides for the annulment of child marriages up to the age of 23 instead of 20, and that the provisions of the potential law take precedence over any other laws, customs, customs or practices governing the parties to the marriage. according to the bill.
Critics also question whether the POCSO Act will be amended to complement the PCMA Act. The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012 (POCSO) is characterized by comprehensive legislation on sexual crimes against children in India. Although the law has protected many children from sexual abuse, families have also abused them. Many cases of sexual assault reported in the country under OSCPO and other laws for children aged 16 to 18 are consensual and reported by the family of a girl who disapproves of the teens` behaviour. All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chairman Asaduddin Owasi called the bill «ridiculous» and said women and men would be legally allowed to marry at the age of 18. If they are treated as adults by law for all other purposes, why not for marriage? In a series of tweets, Owaisi criticized the government for its «paternalism.» Irani said 23 percent of girls under 18 were married, although a law prohibits it. Around 2 million cases of child marriage were arrested in 2015-2020, she said. Figures from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) show that 7% of women aged 15 to 18 were pregnant. The persistence of child marriage despite so many measures raises the question of whether society attaches more importance to the institution of marriage than the parties to it? In granting a valid status to such marriages, is there tacit consent to the maintenance of ancient customary practices, although they have become superfluous in modern times; And above all, in the search for a legal solution to a social problem, do we digress? Questions galore, but no answers! This brings us to the related issue of the matrimonial rights of the parties to such a marriage.
Article 5 (n) of POCSO punishes sexual assault by penetration of a child by a person related to the child by marriage, and article 375 (pen) of the Criminal Code punishes sexual acts with a girl under 18 years of age, with or without her consent. The exemption from Article 375, which allows men to marry their wives over the age of 15 but under 18, was passed in November 2017 by a chamber of the Supreme Court in Independent Thought v. Union of India. Husbands can now be convicted of raping their underage wives. In February this year, the High Court of Punjab and Haryana granted protection to a Muslim couple (a 17-year-old girl married to a 36-year-old man) because it was a legal marriage under personal law. HC reviewed the provisions of the law prohibiting child marriage, but noted that Muslim law will take precedence because the special law does not take precedence over personal laws. «You shouldn`t tackle a problem immediately by law. You need to understand the fundamental social problem. Girls must have equal opportunities in health, education and life. Including more women in the workforce, such as South Korea and Japan, can also help reduce gender imbalance and address issues related to early marriage,» said Vinoj Manning. Much care and consideration is given to weddings in India; Nevertheless, society and its rigid rules have prevented people, especially women, from making their own decisions about their lives and the age at which they want to marry.
In Victorian times, the legal age of marriage was 21 to 1823. After 1823, however, it was reduced to 14 for boys and 12 for girls. There were many social ills in colonial India and one of them was child marriage.