Community radio stations can play a vital role in ending social issues like child marriage,” said child right experts and Odisha community radio promoters in a State-level consultation programme jointly organised by the Young India, the Odisha chapters of ActionAid and the Unicef on Thursday here.
Explaining the gravity of the child marriage issue in India, Unicef’s child right expert lakshmi Narayan Nanda highlighted the data provided in the recent National Family Health Survey (NFSH-4) and explained about various reasons behind the practice of child marriage in the State.
“The situation is, however, improving in the State and continuous action by various agencies can prevent child marriage and end the practice in the State,” said ActionAid’s Odisha regional manager Debabrat Patra.
“Community media being closely working with communities can play an important role in preventing child marriage in their coverage regions,” he added.
While explaining the engagement of community radio stations in creating awareness in the communities, Sishir Kumar Das of Daspalla based “Radio Suravi” spoke about how his radio programme “Suna Jhia (Golden Girl)” has brought awareness among the parents to feel proud of having a daughter than counting a girl child as a burden.
Radio Namsakar chairperson and community media specialist NA Shah Ansari stressed upon the fact that education of girls can help ending child marriage in the society and highlighted the programmes produced by the station crew to promote girls’ education and facilitate re-schooling of the drop-out girls.
ActionAid communication head Ghasiram Panda said effecting communication at the community level can achieve bigger success in preventing child marriage and also explained how to access data on child marriage and related subjects to add value to the radio content. While suggestions like creation of common as well as station specific contents on child marriage was well taken by both experts and participants, lakshmi Narayan Nanda of Unicef proposed for production of programmes and contents in collaboration with District Child Protection Units (DCPU).
Realising the gravity of the issue and its direct link with IMR and MMR, Community Radio Station promoters agreed to make the issue integral to their objective of bringing change in the society.
More than 12 functional community radios of Odisha participants attended and planned to march with the issues.