Grappling to deal with a spurt of cases of child marriages in the State, Haryana Government has sought status report from various departments on the action taken by them to prevent child marriages.
Haryana Child and Women Development Department in a communiqué sent to 12 departments/concerned authorities on the directions of the Chief Minister Manohar lal has directed them to implement the steps suggested in a study undertaken by Mumbai based Tata Institute of Social Sciences for prohibition of child marriage in Haryana and submit an action taken report by the end of this month.
As per the available information, as many as 278 complaints of child marriage were received in the State from October 2014 to December 2015. During this period, 129 child marriages were prevented with counselling and 30 through injunction orders. The remaining complaints were either referred to police for necessary action or application were given for nullity under Section 3.
Several cases of child marriage that have come to light are from areas adjoining the neighbouring Rajasthan, where this malpractice is stated to be rampant. Haryana’s Sirsa district has reported a large number of complaints of child marriage in the past two years.
Referring to various suggestions laid down for a particular department to stop the practice of child marriage, the Child and Women Development Department has directed concerned authorities to send action taken report on the suggestions by this month so that a status report can be put up to the Chief Minister for perusal.
The letter has been sent to the departments including Police, School and Higher Education, Health, local Urban Bodies, Development & Panchayats, Haryana State
legal Services Authority, all Deputy Commissioners, all district programme officers and all
protection cum prohibition officers in the State.
A day before, the Chief Minister Manohar lal had also directed the concerned departments to take action as per the suggestions made in the research study conducted by the Women and Child Development Department on prohibition of child marriage in the state.
These suggestions included convergence of efforts to bring about a change in attitude of the people through the efforts of the government machinery, Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) working for women and children, e spread of legal literacy through wide dissemination of information about the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act (PCMA), compulsory registration of birth and marriages and making Panchayat members responsible for reporting child marriages among other measures.