Some of us cannot even fathom the idea of getting married during our teenage years, or even during our 20s. In India, however, innocent children are being forced into marriage at an alarming rate.
About 12 million Indian children were married before the age of 10 last year, according to a data journalism initiative called IndiaSpend. This number is already equivalent to the entire populations of two regions in India.
Of all the children who were married at a very early age, 84 percent of them are Hindus while 11 percent are Muslims.
Both Hinduism and Islam consider arranged marriages as acceptable, unlike in Christianity where this sacred union requires the consent of an adult man and an adult woman.
Since women are also generally still looked down upon in Hinduism and Islam, 65 percent or more than 7.84 million of the married children were young girls. Eight in every 10 girls who were forced into marriage were also found to be illiterate.
Most of the Hindu girls (72 percent) who were married at a very young age were also found to come from rural areas. A lower but still alarming number of Muslim girls who were forced into marriage—58.5 percent—also came from the outskirts of India.
IndiaSpend also reported a survey from the Delhi-based advocacy group Nirantar, which revealed that Christian women were among the oldest who enter marriage in India. Christians in the predominantly Hindu nation were found to get married at a median age of 20.6 years old, although this age is still young when compared to Western standards.
Women who follow the religion called Jainism registered the oldest median age for getting married at 20.8 years old, while Sikh women usually get married at the median age of 19.9 years old.
As expected, Hindu and Muslim women were found to get married the youngest, at a median age of 16.7 years old.
The same survey also revealed that the level of teenage pregnancy and early motherhood is nine times higher among women with no education than among women with 12 or more years of education.
