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Child marriage is regarded as one of the harmful traditional practices existing in Nepal. Although the government has formulated various laws that frame child marriage as a fundamental rights violation, weak implementation of these laws and policies and high impunity against child marriage compounded by deep-rooted gender inequality and traditional practices have created hurdles to end child marriage from the country.
To address the issues of child marriage, Girls Rights Forums (GRFs) of Kapilvastu and Rupandehi districts organized a virtual interaction program with the concerned stakeholders on June 30, 2021, in the coordination of WOREC and CARE Nepal. The program featured provincial level and local level policymakers, representatives from civil societies, donors and the Nepal police. The interaction program aimed to bring the concerned stakeholders together to work in coordination with GRFs, WOREC and CARE Nepal to reduce child marriage in Nepal.
Speaking at the program, Gulsabha Banu, a member of GRF Kapilvastu highlighted how the financial uncertainly unleashed by the Covid-19 has led to girls being pushed into child marriage.
“My friend, who was also a member of GRF Kapilvastu, used to attend different sessions related to girl’s education and the harmful impacts of child marriage. Despite that, during the lockdown, her parents not only forced her to drop out of school but she was also forced to marry at an early age of 18,” said Banu.
The Constitution of Nepal 2015 A.D has provided a guarantee against child marriage while the age of majority for marriage is 20 years of age. Accordingly, there are various acts i.e., National Criminal Code 2017, the Act relating to children 2018 and The National Civil Code 2017, which have framed child marriage as a crime and punishable act and is deemed by law as “forced marriage.”
Members of GRFs Kapilvastu and Rupandehi pointed out that the limited coordination, collaboration among various agencies and the absence of accountability mechanisms have enabled weak implementation of the law against child marriage.
“Along with being a member of GRF, I am also a reporter at a radio station. One time, when I went to take an interview on the topic of child marriage with a deputy mayor of my rural municipality, she declined my request. She bluntly said she is not responsible for stopping child marriage and that she shouldn’t be held accountable for not taking action to prevent child marriage,” said Sumitra Murau, member of GRF Kapilvastu.
Sumitra Murau, a member of GRF Rupandehi, also said that along with the local government, in some cases, the police force has shown a cold shoulder towards the issue of child marriage. “Although the police are the one who should have taken adequate action to prevent child marriage, they are seen attending marriage function and giving a blessing to the child bride,” said Murau.
Addressing the issues, Nava Chandra Malla, Police inspector at Lumbini province Police Office Dang, showed his commitment to working towards ending child marriage in coordination with civil societies and the province government. However, he also said that police should not be held accountable for attending the marriage function that involves child bride or groom since they may be unaware of the age of the bride and groom. “Since the ages of the bride and groom are not disclosed in the invitation card, how can we know that the marriage is indeed a child marriage?” Malla questioned.
Meanwhile, Madhu Sudhan Dawadi, program director at Children as Zones of Peace-National Campaign (CZOP) informed that in 2016, the government adopted the ‘National Strategy to End Child Marriage’ with the vision of ending child marriage by 2030 and promoting legal accountability however, the government is yet to allocate the budget to implement the strategy.
“We urge the federal, provincial and local government authorities to address the issue of child marriage. For this, civil societies and the concerned stakeholders should advocate for the implementation of the National Strategy to End Child Marriage,” stated Dawadi.
Along with the lack of implementation of the National Strategy to End Child Marriage, Binita Pandey, senior program supervisor and legal coordinator at WOREC, also stated that absolute criminalization of child marriage does more harm than eliminate child marriage.
“Absolute criminalization of child marriage needs to be stopped and rather, the state should develop preventive measures to eliminate the child marriage. Therefore, it is important to review the criminal legislation on child marriage which has strictly prescribed age as a single most determining tool to determine the consent on marriage and subsequently punish all or different forms of the child marriage,” Pandey said in the program.
National Criminal Code 2017 deems child marriage as a crime, and it has determined the punishment without exception to anyone. For instance, if there are reported cases of child marriage, both boys and girls are prosecuted in a criminal charge of child marriage. Moreover, there are additional criminal charges of statutory rape in cases of boys, and there is the likelihood of conviction of both crimes. Also, parents, including all the parties attending the marriage ceremony, can be prosecuted.
Arjun Thapa, Executive Director of Kalika Self Reliance Social Centre, Kapilvastu further said that the absolute criminalization of child marriage has also hampered the adolescents’ sexual and reproductive health rights on their access to basic health facilities like family planning, abortion, regular health check-ups of pregnant and new mothers.
“Recently, an underaged married girl was hospitalized when she suffered from heavy bleeding after undergoing abortion at home. Later, we were informed that since the couple had a child marriage, they were scared to visit the hospital for an abortion,” said Thapa. “This shows that if the government aims to curb maternal and child mortality rate due to child marriage, the concerned stakeholders should also focus on providing sexual and reproductive health education to adolescents, their family members and the community and also encourage the married couples to delay the age of childbearing.”
In the program, the members of GRFs Kapilvastu and Rupandehi focused on the need to promote strategic litigation to hold authorities at the central, provincial, and local levels accountable for taking adequate action to implement affirmative legal provisions aimed at preventing, investigating, and prosecuting child marriage, as well as implementing judicial orders and decisions.