Guwahati: Claiming that the Assam authorities’s fortnight-long crackdown on little one marriage had a ‘constructive’ impression within the state, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday mentioned a number of households had cancelled scheduled weddings of underage folks as a fallout of the continued drive. The operation began on February 3 and three,031 folks have been apprehended towards registration of 4,225 instances until Tuesday.
“Reports are coming from various parts of Assam that several families have cancelled pre-scheduled marriages between underage children after our drive against such illegal practices,” Sarma wrote on Twitter.
Reports are coming from varied elements of Assam that a number of households have cancelled pre-scheduled marriages between unde age youngsters after our drive towards such unlawful practices. This is certainly a constructive impression of our two-week lengthy crackdown towards little one marriage.
— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) February 17, 2023
“This is definitely a positive impact of our two-week-long crackdown against child marriage,” he added on the micro-blogging web site.
Opposition events have criticised the style during which the drive is being carried out, terming the arrests of teenage husbands and relations as an “abuse of law” for political achieve, and equating the police motion with “terrorising people”.
The Gauhati High Court had additionally come down closely on the state authorities for slapping stringent legal guidelines just like the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO) and rape expenses on little one marriage accused, and acknowledged that these are “absolutely weird” allegations.
Observing that arresting a lot of folks within the crackdown has created “havoc in the private life of people”, Justice Suman Shyam had on February 14 mentioned there is no such thing as a want for custodial interrogation of the accused in such instances.
Coming below criticism for failing to safe the way forward for the affected girls and their youngsters, the federal government had on February 9 shaped a cupboard sub-committee for rehabilitation of the “victims”.
Asserting that the drive will proceed until the 2026 Assembly election, Sarma had justified the measures and mentioned practically 17 per cent of over 6.2 lakh pregnant girls in Assam final yr have been youngsters, in response to the Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) portal.
The state cupboard had not too long ago accredited a proposal to guide males who’ve married ladies beneath 14 years of age below the POCSO.
Cases below the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 will likely be registered towards those that have married ladies within the 14-18 age group, the cupboard had determined.
The offenders will likely be arrested and the marriages declared unlawful. If the groom is beneath 14 years of age, he will likely be despatched to a reform home.
Assam has a excessive price of maternal and toddler mortality, with little one marriage being the first trigger, in response to experiences by the National Family Health Survey (NFHS).
