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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Child Marriages During the Pandemic -Shireen Jejeebhoy

-TheIndiaForum.in

The worsening of poverty during the pandemic may well have led to a worrying spurt in marriages of girl children in India. The information available indicates that has happened, pushing back the progress of recent decades in reducing child marriages.

The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted life for all groups in society. While attention has been focused on the direct effects of Covid-19 on hospitalisation and deaths, the ways in which it has affected the young has received less attention. Indeed, the young have been thus far less affected by the virus than older age groups.

But the pandemic has affected the young indirectly and it is these indirect consequences that pose a severe threat to the future of the generation, especially for the most vulnerable among them. The consequences are evident in most spheres of their lives, and are even more severe for girls and young women than for boys and young men. Many young people have been left out of the shift to online education because of limited connectivity and access to devices. Girls have fared far worse than boys. Post-Covid-19 unemployment rates are higher among the young than older populations, and among women than men. Also documented are increased experience of violence, increased symptoms of mental ill-health, and limited access to health services including those that the young are most in need of: menstrual health supplies, contraceptives, pregnancy-related and other reproductive care, and mental health counselling.

Perhaps the least documented consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic and related lockdowns in India is a spurt in child and early marriage. Drawing from available insights — from research in previous humanitarian disasters and crises in India and elsewhere, as well as from reports of telephone and online surveys, and print and electronic media reports — I synthesise what is available and highlight the likely consequences for adolescents and youth in India.

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