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India - Married at 14, Mothers At 15 + Inadequate Nutrition = High Risks for Child Brides of Tribal Odisha

By Sarada Lahangir

Laxmi Khara, 20, a Paraja tribal from Nandapur village of
Koraput district got married in 2007 when she was 15. After giving
birth to twin girls who died within a few days of their birth and a
miscarriage, today she is the mother of a toddler, but both mother and
child appear highly malnourished. (Credit: Sarada Lahangir\WFS)

Malkangiri (Women’s Feature Service) – Most homes in the village of Kudumulugumma in Odisha’s Malkangiri district are just mud-plastered huts with thatched roofs. Emerging from one of them is a child, who seems to be playing with a doll. Actually, Kalyani – who must be in her mid-teens – is holding on to a six-month-old baby. Her child-like form, wrapped in a sari that seems too big for her, wanders around listlessly.

Kalyani’s story is tragic even in a region where child marriage is the accepted practice. An orphan left in the care of her grandmother, she was married at nine to a boy who was about three years older. Before she delivered the child she now holds in her arms, she had gone through two pregnancies that ended in miscarriages. Today, her baby boy is severely malnourished, and Kalyani cannot breast feed him because she herself is so weak.

There are many women in tribal Odisha whose lives follow a similar pattern. Take Laxmi Khara, 20, a Paraja tribal from Nandapur village of Koraput district. She got married in 2007 when she was 15. In early 2009, she gave birth to twin girls who died within a few days of their birth. Her next pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. Today, she is the mother of a toddler, but both mother and child appear highly malnourished and Saigeeta, the village anganwadi worker, keeps advising her to eat better. “Laxmi is the youngest daughter-in-law in the family so she is used to eating last. I keep telling her that whatever she is eating is not enough,” says Saigeeta.

While travelling in Odisha’s tribal belt of Koraput, Rayagada, Malkangiri, and Nawrangpur districts, one has come across innumerable Kalyanis and Laxmis, girls who got married when they were still children and are now holding babies in their arms.

According to UNICEF’s State of the World's Children, 2012, report, over 37 per cent girls in Odisha marry before they are 18 – the legally sanctioned age – and 13 per cent men get married before they are 21, the legal age of marriage for men. “This has serious repercussions particularly on the health of young women when we consider child birth,” Shairose Mawji, the chief of UNICEF, Odisha pointed out.

She referred to the data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3), according to which 14 per cent women aged between 15-19 years were already mothers or pregnant at the time of Survey in 2005-06. According to Mawji, early marriage and motherhoood was the result of the lack of education. “Less girls than boys attend school – a gap that increases they grow up. Between the age of 6-10 years, 86 per cent boys and 82 per cent girls attend school. But by the time the children reach the age of 15-17, only 32 per cent boys and 13 per cent girls continue their education,” she has noted in the report.

The noted medical journal, ‘The Lancet’, warns that child marriage could be a crippling medical and social burden to women in India and poses a demographic threat to the entire world. Girls who marry early are twice as likely to have multiple unwanted pregnancies, nearly 50 per cent are more likely to have an abortion and more than six times more likely to seek a sterilisation, compared to their counterparts who had married after the age of 18. Child brides are also at greater risk of getting fistulas – tears in the genital tract – as well as other complications of pregnancy.

I came across Chandru Muduli, who lost his wife Raila, to pregnancy-related complications. She was 18 and her husband revealed that at 30 he got married to Raila when she was just 12. The girl suffered abortions twice and her third pregnancy ended with her death. When asked what his late wife ate as part of her daily meals, he said, “She had whatever was available, and sometimes we managed to give her ragi.” His straightforward answer revealed the true story of under-nutrition that marks most diets in this part of the world, with women eating even less because they invariably ate last.

As the Chief District Medical Officer (CDMO) of Koraput, Dr Nishi Kant Kar is familiar with the scenario that Chandru Muduli drew up. Says Dr Kar, “The general recommendation as far as caloric intake is concerned is that women need about 1750 to 2000 calories per day, which should include 20 per cent protein and 15 to 20 per cent fat. It is advisable for expectant mothers to consume 300 extra calories per day, while lactating mothers require about 550 calories at the initial level and this could gradually come down to around 400 calories per day. But the average tribal woman consumes less than a 1000 calories per day whether or not she is pregnant or feeding her baby. This leads to severe anemia and other complications.”

According to Dr Kar, his department is trying to its best to raise levels of awareness about better food practices among the villagers in this region, especially pregnant women, through its network of anganwadi workers and Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs).

Poor nutrition with early marriage leads to a particularly dangerous set of circumstances. Says a Malkangiri-based doctor, Anuj Padhi, “In a child marriage, the individuals involved are not yet ready, either physically, mentally or emotionally, to take on the responsibilities of adult life. Child marriage also threatens the health of the young mother; a girl giving birth at 15 is five times more likely to die in the process of giving birth than a girl of 19 or older, and her infant is 60 per cent more likely to succumb as well.”

The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, was passed following an order from the Supreme Court of India. Under this Act, which came into force in 2007, all the states in the country were directed to frame rules as expeditiously as possible. The Act prescribes two years’ rigorous imprisonment or a penalty of Rs 1 lakh (US$1=Rs 50), or both, for those guilty of marrying girls aged below 18. Under the Orissa Prohibition of Child Marriage Rules, 2009, the state was supposed to appoint child marriage prohibition officers in all the 30 districts. These officers were required to create awareness on the issue, prevent the solemnisation of child marriages and lodge cases at the local police station should such marriages take place. Additionally, the local district magistrate was also deemed to be the Child Marriage Prohibition Officer, with powers to prevent the solemnisation of mass child marriages, on traditionally appointed days such as Akshaya Tritiya.

The law, unfortunately, still remains unimplemented in many tribal districts of the state. While mass child marriages – such as those seen in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh – do not take place here, many girls end up being married in their early teens, when they should be in school.

According to social activist, Sanjit Patnaik, director of the South Orissa Voluntary Action (SOVA), ending child marriage will continue to remain challenging because even parents who are aware of its negative impacts find it too difficult to resist the heavy weight of tradition. “Besides, there are economic and social pressures as well. Clearly, the law alone won’t work. It requires a change in the psyche of the communities here who constitute some of the most backward and illiterate in the country.”

According to Patnaik if two interventions are take seriously, they could prove to be the best way to address child marriages, at least in the long term: The education and empowerment of women. He puts it this way, “In a largely male-dominated country, these are the only ways to end this harmful social practice.”