Woman lawmaker of the ruling Congress, Dipika Pandey Singh has taken initiative against child marriage and trafficking after she piloted a project in Godda district for a focused intervention to prevent the menace in coming months.
The initiative is important as among 24 districts of Jharkhand, Godda had topped in terms of child marriage in 2019 as per the record of National Family Health Survey.
The MLA on Monday formally rolled out a child protection project by independently tying up with Centre for Child Rights (CCR) of NUSRL, Ranchi to reverse the negative image of Godda in terms of children safety in next three years.
Singh, who represents Mahagama Assembly seat, has planned to implement the project in three blocks of her constituency namely Mahgama, Thakurghanti and Meharma.
Prior to the launch she held a virtual meeting with experts, resource persons of CCR, stakeholders as well as DC of Godda Bhor Singh Yadav and DDC Anjali Yadav.
Jharkhand stands third after West Bengal and Bihar in terms of child marriage. Godda has the highest number of cases 63.5 per cent followed by Garhwa (58.8 per cent) and Deoghar (52.7 per cent). Godda and Deoghar are the parts of Santhal Pargana division.
Child marriage is quite prevalent Santhal Pargana. Few years back the then Jharkhand BJP president Tala Marandi was caught in a controversy for solemnising marriage of his son with a minor. The official record of Godda district administration suggests that across the district 13 instance of child marriage was reported out of which 12 were prevented by the district administration.
But the quantum of incidents could be much more which remains unreported, believed many.
Her initiative assumes importance in the wake pandemic that has rendered at least 400 children of the district orphans, or lost one of the parents making them highly vulnerable.
Singh said that she was toying with the idea for a concrete plan to stop child marriage since last year during which she came in touch with CCR wing of NUSRL.
“I hastened the process when three months back a minor girl of Sarath of Deoghar district requested me on my personal twitter handle to save her from getting married. Luckily, we could save her and she also joined ANM training to support her family. She again contacted me stating that her parents were now forcing her sister into marriage. I could sense the pain and suffering of such girls whose dream and life is being crushed by poverty child marriage,” she said.
In the selected blocks village level committees will be formed for child protection, members of the committee will be trained to identify who else can be vulnerable to child marriage and what immediate steps to be taken to prevent parents solemnizing child marriage. An intelligence network will be developed for quick information in case a child is trafficked.
The Godda DC said that district administration is also planning on the same line. Recently, the state government has directed such districts to appoint SPOs where the cases of child marriage and trafficking are frequent. Such SPOs will keep tab on traffickers and child marriage.
