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INDIA - HIGH PREVALENCE OF CHILD
MARRIAGE - STUDY
09
March 2009
Source:
Reuters
By
Tan Ee Lyn
HONG
KONG, March 10 (Reuters) - A large proportion of women in India were married
when they were still children, a study has found, and researchers warned that
such unions carried higher risks of unwanted pregnancies and female
sterilization.
Nearly
all the women who were married before they reached the legal age of 18 reported
that they used no contraception before they had their first child, according to
the study, which was published in The Lancet.
UNICEF
defines child marriage as marriage before 18 years of age and such a practice
has been increasingly viewed as a violation of human rights.
Marriage
at a very young age carries grave health consequences for both the girl and her
children and it is well documented that adolescent mothers are more likely to
experience complications such as obstetric fistula.
Researchers
analysed data from a national family health survey that was conducted from 2005
to 2006 in India. The survey involved 22,807 Indian women who were aged between
20 and 24 at the time of the survey.
Of
these, 22.6 percent were married before they were 16, 44.5 percent were married
when they were between 16 and 17, and 2.6 percent were married before they
turned 13.
"Women
who were married as children remained significantly more likely to have had
three or more childbirths, a repeat childbirth in less than 24 months, multiple
unwanted pregnancies, pregnancy termination, and sterilization," wrote the
researchers, led by Anita Raj at the Boston University School of Public Health.
India
introduced laws against child marriage in 1929 and set the legal age for
marriage at 12 years. The legal age for marriage was increased to 18 years in
1978.
While
the practice of child marriage has decreased slowly, its prevalence remains
unacceptably high, and rural, poor, less educated girls and those from central
or eastern regions of the country were most vulnerable to the practice, the
researchers wrote.
Such
findings indicate that child marriage affects not only adolescents aged 16 to
17 years, but also large numbers of pubescent girls aged 14 to 15 years, and
show that existing policies and economic development gains have failed to help
rural and poor populations, the researchers wrote.
They
attributed the high numbers of sterilization in young women married as children
to them having their desired number of children at an earlier age.
But
it was also indicative of inadequate fertility control, which was evident from
the high numbers of unwanted pregnancies among these women.
They
also warned that sterilization might reduce condom use in such couples, which
would heighten the risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.
Child-marriage
prevention programmes should be broadened to include interventions for women
married as children and men who might pursue children for marriage, the
researchers added.
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