Jyoti has been fighting the battle against the system of child marriage for the past four years. Still, in Jharkhand, the state from where Jyoti has undertaken the fight, marriage of minors is a very common practice.
Jyoti herself is a victim of child marriage. At the age of 15, she was forcefully married off by her family. This was not the end. Two of her younger sisters were also married off one after the other when they were still minors.
Jharkhand ranks first in the country in crimes like child marriage. As per the of 2020 by Registrar General of India, 5.8% of girls are married before 18 years of age. This kind of marriage mostly takes place in villages.
Jyoti is running a campaign against child marriage in different villages of Kodarma, Girdih, and Hazaribagh districts, in association with an organisation. Jyoti, a resident of Geda village in Barkattha block of Hazaribagh, says, "I have stopped ten child marriages by associating with the village schools and anganwadi centers".
"As soon as we receive any information, we reach the child라이브 바카라 house with the help of local administration. We try to convince the family members. If they fail to understand, we tell them about the laws and the acts. Though the girls’ family members agree but the boys’ family members threaten and torture us”.
Jyoti believes that child marriage has an adverse impact on girls’ education and health.
Girls are made to quit their studies in the 8th and 9th standards and are forced into marriage by their family members; they become pregnant at a very early age. This results in both mother and child getting affected by anaemia (lack of blood).”
Both Jyoti's concerns and complaints find validation in the National Family Health Surveyreport.
According to this report, 65.3 percent of women and 67 percent of children under five years of age in Jharkhand are victims of anaemia.
Additionally, the state's dropout rate has become a matter of concern for the government.
According to the media report, more girls drop out of school as compared to boys. The rate of drop out in classes 1 to 5 is 3.5%, between 6 to 8 it is 5.2% and between classes 9 and 10 it stands at 13.4 %. On the other hand, the drop- out rate of girls in high school is 13.7%.”
Om Prakash, associated with the campaign for a child marriage-free India, also agrees that most girls who are married before the age of 18 are dropouts. He suggests that to end this practice along with campaigns, government needs to provide free and compulsory education.
Also, a separate budget needs to be allocated for women and girls.
Om Prakash is of the opinion that as long as the society thinks of child marriage a normal practice, it will continue to take place. He says that enforcement of the law and criminal punishment is the only way to put an end to this practice.
Despite the national campaign of Beti Bachao Beti Padhao running for ten years, crimes against daughters are increasing in Jharkhand.
This state is always in the limelight for crimes against women. The mob lynching of women here in the name of witchcraft is known internationally.
It is a fact that cruelty against tribal, Dalit, widowed, and poverty-stricken women continues unabashedly in the name of witch hunting in the states of Bihar, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and many other states too.
However, when one sees Jharkhand separately from other states of India, its picture appears to be more grotesque. When compared to other states, the number of such murders of women is highest in Jharkhand. As per the , from 2015 to 2022, 277 women were killed in Jharkhand alone in the name of witchcraft.
Asha, an NGO, which has been running programmes to eliminate witchcraft practices, does not agree with government statistics.
The organisation claims that over 1800 women have been killed in the past 26 years solely on the pretext of witchcraft, magic, sorcery, and ojha (traditional folk healer).
In the last year women voters remained at the centre of assembly elections as their number paralleled that of male voters.
To increase the number of women voters, the government is running schemes like the Maiya Samman Yojana, Savitribai Phule Kishori Samriddhi Yojana, Phoolo Jhano Ashirwad Abhiyan, etc. but for decades it has not been able to enforce any strict laws that stop the killing of women in the name of witch hunting. The practice goes on in the state.
Dr Sanjay Basu Mallick, author of the book ‘Dayan Gatha’, says the matter of lynching women in the name of witch hunting will not be found in any party라이브 바카라 meetings or manifesto. Why? It is because people with patriarchal mindsets promote such practices to maintain their dominance in society.
It is true that before elections there are many issues discussed and promises made; But why not on this matter?
Experts believe that the silence of these political parties is on account of the vote bank.
Families and the villages are involved in the death of the women who are killed in the name of witch hunting.
There have been many such cases where the village panchayats too have been found to be involved in these murders.
Apart from this, Jharkhand is also featured among the states with the highest trafficking rates. In the last 23 years, human trafficking has emerged as a sore for the state.
Irrespective of which political party forms the government in the state, this issue has never become political because its victims have been lower class, lower caste girls, who are not considered a vote bank for political parties.
According to a UN report, Jharkhand has become the most sensitive state with respect to child and women trafficking.
According to a report by the Shakti Vahini organisation working on human trafficking, five lakh children are trafficked from India every year, while more than 20,000 children are trafficked from Bengal, Jharkhand, Odisha, and Bihar.
Any figures related to trafficking that come from Jharkhand are believed by the police to be either recorded cases or data collected by NGOs.
However, organisations working on this issue claim that trafficking occurs at a rate many times higher than those figures, which go unreported.
Several media reports have stated that every year, thirty thousand girls are trafficked from Jharkhand to major cities for domestic work.
There are no separate laws for prevention of witch hunting practice in the state of Jharkhand.
Only the 'Bihar Witch Practices Prohibition Act 1999' is applicable in Jharkhand, which was adopted by the government on July 3, 2001.
This is the only law applicable.
The law of Assam Government for prevention of witch hunting is better and stricter when compared to other states. This is the reason as to why there is a demand for a central law to be implemented in all the states on the lines of the one being practiced by the Assam Government.
Ajay Jaiswal, secretary, Asha, NGO, who advocates for women empowerment believes that advocacy always bears positive results; however, in the case of Jharkhand, it needs to be realised at ground level.
Ajay Jaiswal feels that there many social evils being practiced against daughters of the state.
"If we are talking about ‘Beti Padhao, Beti Bachao’, then we have to think about the entire family of that daughter. Focus has to be on education of girl child and family members have to be given employment, so that girls do not need to migrate for work. Superstitious beliefs have to come to an end so that women are not labelled as witch and murdered.” He says.
