Child marriages in Medak

• Most of them occur in the constituency of Minister for Women and Child Welfare
• At least 10-15 marriages take place every day

TP Venu Hyderabad: Thirteen-year-old G Sharada of Terapur village in Medak district is lucky not to be married off at that tender age. Her marriage was fixed for May 31; but her saviour proved to be Child Helpline (a pan India emergency phone service to help children in distress). The marriage was stopped with the help of an Anganwadi worker, village revenue officer and an NGO � Centre for Action Research and People's Development (CARPED).

Sharada is an exception to a tradition that defies all laws prohibiting child marriages. In many villages of Medak district where 40 per cent of nearly 5,000 weddings that take place in a year are child marriages. Ironically, most of the child marriages occur in Narsapur, Minister for Women and Child Welfare Sunitha Lakshma Reddy's constituency. Activists claim at least 10-15 marriages take place every day in the 46 mandals of Medak. M S Chandra of Medak Child Helpline says, "We received 47 calls in May and were able to stop 36 marriages. But then it is just the tip of the iceberg. Hundreds of marriages go unnoticed as we do not get information, or we receive the information late in the day." According to State Resource Survey conducted in 2010 by the Women's Welfare Department and UNICEF, child marriages in some districts were as much as 30 per cent. The percentage has gone up since then. Adilabad, Mahbubnagar, Vizianagaram, Srikakulam and Khammam too witness 30-40 per cent child marriages in a year. According to Isidore Philips, Director, Divya Disha, "Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) supervisors are also given police powers; they can go and record statements and play an important role but the provisions within the Child Marriage Prohibition Act are not used." The Child Helpline in Sangareddy received 34 calls last week and more than 50 per cent of them were from Kowdipally mandal. What is alarming is the fact that Kowdipally comes under the Women and Child Welfare Minister's constituency. Continued on P5