India’s West Bengal state tries to put an end to child marriages: ‘we want to save all girls’

In September, when the mother of 17-year-old Pinki Sahoo* in West Bengal’s Dakshin Dinajpur had arranged her marriage to a construction worker, the teen informed her school in a desperate plea for help to stop the union.

One of her teachers along with a child rights’ activist took the matter to local authorities, who eventually convinced Sahoo’s mother, a beedi roller, not to allow her daughter to marry before the age of 18.

“There are many poor families, like mine, who want to get their daughters married as early as possible so that they don’t have to raise them any longer,” Sahoo told This Week in Asia.

According to Unicef, India is home to 223 million child brides – the largest number globally.

In 2022, the United Nations Population Fund, stated that some 42 per cent of the women aged 20-24 in West Bengal marry before 18, as opposed to 23 per cent, nationally.

To improve girls’ quality of life and delay their marriages, the state government founded conditional cash transfer programmes – Kanyashree and Rupashre – but there is concern the funds could be used for paying a dowry, activists said.

One of the main reasons child marriages are so prevalent in India, is because the bride’s family pays a lower dowry price to the husband for younger girls than for older women, activists said.

Special adolescent girls’ clubs have also been established in some areas, to stop child marriages, where mothers talk to young men to prevent them from marrying minors.

Religious leaders from both Hindu and Muslim communities have also come forward.

Aminuddin Faizi, the imam of Jama Masjid at Malda’s Sonakul, said after prayers on special religious days such as Eid, he sends out messages persuading families not to let their girls get married, because