Child marriage now hides locally

In early 2025, district authorities in Chhattisgarh intervened to prevent the marriage of a 16-year-old girl who had recently dropped out of school, officials familiar with the matter said. The wedding, informal and unregistered, was being planned quietly, the kind of arrangement that often escapes scrutiny. Officials say such cases illustrate how child marriage continues to persist even as national averages show steady improvement, and why renewed policy attention has become urgent.

Despite being legally prohibited for decades, child marriage remains one of India’s most persistent social challenges. According to the latest data from the National Family Health Survey, about 23 percent of women aged 20 to 24 were married before turning 18. At first glance, the figure suggests a problem that is broadly spread across the country. In practice, however, officials and researchers note that child marriage has become increasingly concentrated, geographically, socially, and economically.

Rather than being sustained by widespread social acceptance, child marriage today is largely driven by structural vulnerability. Government officials working in high-prevalence districts say early marriage often functions as a coping response for poor households, particularly in rural and tribal areas. School dropouts, concerns about safety, lack of affordable transport, and limited livelihood options for adolescent girls frequently converge to narrow choices rapidly once education is interrupted.

Several district administrators describe a pattern in which marriage follows soon after girls leave secondary school. While the timeline varies, the link between school discontinuation and early marriage is well documented. The loss of access to education often coincides with the withdrawal of other forms of institutional support, making marriage appear, to families, as the only viable option.

This dynamic helps explain why child marriage remains more prevalent among Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Officials and researchers stress that the issue is not rooted in caste practice alone, but in the intersection of poverty, uneven access to schools, weak transport networks, and fragile local governance. Framing child marriage primarily as a cultural problem, they argue, risks obscuring these structural drivers and reinforcing stigma rather than solutions.

India’s legal framework against child marriage is among the most comprehensive in South Asia. The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, defines a child as a girl below 18 years and a boy below 21 years, makes such marriages voidable, and prescribes penalties for those who perform, permit, or facilitate them. Courts have, over time, reinforced the primacy of child protection laws over personal or customary practices.

Under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which replaced the Indian Penal Code in 2023, sexual relations with a wife below the age of 18 constitute rape, removing the earlier marital exemption for minors. The Supreme Court has also clarified in multiple rulings that offences involving minors fall within the ambit of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, regardless of marital status. Legal experts note that these interpretations have significantly strengthened protections for underage girls.

Yet law alone has not eliminated the practice. Enforcement remains uneven, particularly where marriages are conducted discreetly and without registration. Families often avoid public ceremonies, reducing the likelihood of early detection. By the time authorities become aware, marriages may already have taken place, limiting the scope for timely intervention.

It is this gap between law and lived reality that recent policy initiatives seek to address. In November 2024, the Ministry of Women and Child Development launched the Bal Vivah Mukt Bharat campaign, positioning it as a coordinated national effort to accelerate the decline of child marriage. The initiative aligns India’s commitments with Sustainable Development Goal 5.3, which calls for the elimination of child marriage by 2030.

Officials associated with the programme say the emphasis has shifted from episodic enforcement to sustained prevention. States and Union Territories have been encouraged to conduct intensive, time-bound drives combining awareness, reporting, and enforcement. These efforts are supported by data-driven identification of high-risk areas, drawing on NFHS indicators and local administrative records.

District administrations have been asked to map vulnerable adolescents, strengthen reporting mechanisms, and improve coordination between schools, health workers, child protection units, and local police. A central monitoring system is being used to track interventions, though officials caution that the quality of reporting varies across regions.

Judicial scrutiny has also increased. In recent years, the Supreme Court has issued directions emphasising the responsibility of states to strengthen enforcement under existing laws, appoint and empower Child Marriage Prohibition Officers, and prioritise prevention over post-facto action. While implementation remains uneven, officials say the judicial focus has helped sustain administrative attention on the issue.

Data continue to show that child marriage is concentrated in specific regions. States such as West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh record higher prevalence, particularly in rural districts with low female secondary school completion. Within these states, officials note, the practice is not uniform but clustered in pockets marked by acute deprivation.

Policy planners say this concentration has informed efforts to prioritise high-burden districts where national averages mask local crises. In such areas, child marriage often intersects with anaemia, early pregnancy, maternal mortality, and low female labour force participation, compounding long-term development challenges.

At the same time, administrators point to examples where sustained local action has shown results. In Chhattisgarh, officials say districts such as Balod have reported prolonged periods without registered child marriage cases following door-to-door awareness campaigns, rapid response mechanisms, and the involvement of panchayats, schools, and health workers. Similar initiatives in neighbouring districts have led to village-level declarations after extended monitoring periods, according to state officials.

Such claims are typically based on the absence of reported cases rather than independent verification, but officials argue they nonetheless reflect improved vigilance and community engagement. International organisations, including UNICEF, have supported these efforts through data analysis, training, and capacity building, reinforcing the importance of multi-sectoral approaches.

The urgency of addressing child marriage lies not only in its persistence, but in its consequences. Studies consistently show that girls married early are more likely to leave education prematurely, experience early and repeated pregnancies, face health risks, and remain excluded from formal employment. At scale, this undermines investments in health, skilling, and women’s economic participation.

As India seeks to accelerate growth and expand its workforce, policymakers increasingly view child marriage as a development constraint rather than a marginal social issue. Officials acknowledge that awareness alone is no longer the central challenge. The task now is to ensure that the state reaches girls and families who remain beyond the effective reach of schools, welfare systems, and local governance.

Whether the current momentum can be sustained will depend on staffing of prohibition officers, continued political attention, and the ability to keep girls in school beyond the primary level. Measures such as safe transport, residential hostels, conditional cash transfers, and credible livelihood pathways for young women are seen as essential complements to legal enforcement.

Child marriage in India may be declining, but those working on the ground caution that it has become harder, more concentrated, and less visible. Addressing it, they argue, will test the state’s capacity to deliver targeted, sustained interventions where they are needed most.

The author is a gender rights advocate and independent journalist who writes on gender justice, education, and child rights