Are The Financially-Stressed Rural Poor Selling Off Their Daughters In The Guise Of Marriage?
Yogendra is freelance writer
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By Yogendra
First publised on 2020-08-17 14:38:23
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Yogendra is freelance writer
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Covid-19, the lockdown and the suspension of economic activity (and hence the earning opportunities for the poor who have little or no savings to tide them over this difficult period) has had many fallouts. The most serious of them is the way some rural poor families are marrying (selling?) off their daughters as they are finding it difficult to even survive. Although activists and government officers are trying their best to prevent such marriages, they are happening stealthily as a report in The Times of India (on August 17, 2020 by Mohua Das) discloses.
Given the condition of most poor families in rural India, it is obvious that if one family is unable to bear the burden of feeding a daughter, another family will definitely not be in a position to feed a daughter-in-law. These marriages are not happening between compatible persons or similarly placed families. As Das reports an incident of an underage girl being married off to a widower aged 50 years, it is obvious that most of these are marriages of convenience.
The excuse given is that the widower needed her to take care of his children from the deceased wife. How could a new bride, who is herself a child, take care of his children? It is a clear case where relatively better-placed persons are scouting the countryside to prey on girls from poor families. It is just another case of trafficking where the future well-being of the girl is seriously in doubt. Regrettably, parents do not understand the implications of their actions.
Since the entire government machinery is engaged in Covid related operations and since most rural families are distressed and would not like to 'squeak' in this matter, child activists have a huge responsibility in this regard. They may be subjected to abuse and hostility from the poor who have nothing to fall back upon and who are erroneously thinking that they are giving their daughters a better life, but activists must take it upon themselves to stop this practice. But as long as the poor are not provided opportunities to earn and schools do not reopen, it will remain an uphill task.
