APSA

Child Rights Trust

Ashadeep

Fedina

Global Rights

Individuals:

Kathyayini Chamaraj

 The meeting started with the campaign members giving the Secretary a brief introduction of the campaign and the reason it was started.

 The Secretary expressed concern about Mass marriages and spoke of the Government’s effort to be on the vigil especially during this period, i.e., the wedding season that is ongoing right now.

 The campaign said that mass marriages are only a part of the problem and the bigger danger is in sporadic, individual cases which are harder to control. 

 The Secretary read out sections of the agenda for the proposed meeting of CSs/DsGP to be held on 17^th March 2006, inorder to give us an idea of what the Government of Karnataka is doing to stop child marriages.

 The Department of women and Child Development, Government of Karnataka has taken the following action regarding implementation of the child marriage Restraint Act 1929.

Proposal is sent to Government to bring amendment to Child marriage restraint act 1929 where in it is suggested to a) appoint Deputy Directors of Woman and Child Development Department as Child Marriage Prevention Officers at the district level b) Power to make rules for carrying out the purposes of the act.

 The district deputy director of the woman and child development department have been informed to direct the child development project officers, assistant child development officers supervisors and anganwadi workers to create awareness among the public about the demerits of child marriages as well as the provisions and punishment contained in the act. Awareness camps are being conducted in the respective districts with the co-operations on the local NGOs, district legal services authority and other departments.

 The district deputy commissioner, chief executive officer of Zilla Panchayat and superintendent of Police of 7 districts namely Bijapur, Bellary, Bidar, Bagalkot, Gulbarga, Raichur, Koppal And Dharwad have been requested to involve the department of health and family welfare, education department with the co-operation of the voluntary organisations to create awareness among the public regarding the provisions and punishments under the child marriage restraint act and also obtain the age proof of the couple before according permission to conduct the mass marriages in the district.

 Under the Karnataka marriages (registration and miscellaneous) act 1976, the following action has been taken:

 Awareness programmes for eradication of social evils such as dowry and child marriages are being conducted at he district level and taluk level by the deputy directors women and child development in co-ordination with NGOs, information and publicity department and district legal services authority. Rs. 1.50 lakhs was incurred during 2005-06 to conduct awareness programmes in 27 districts of the state.

 One day satellite programme was organized on 15-02-2006 to bring awareness regarding the legal implications of the role of society in eradication of child marriages in 175 talukas of the state., ICDS functionaries, state shakthi self help groups members, anganwadi workers and NGOs. Have actively participated in all the 175 receiving centers. An amount for Rs. 1, 93, 871 was incurred for this programme.

 Deputy director, Bijapur district has reported that out of 499 Mass marriages, 53 child marriages were prevented on 26.05.2005. Deputy director, Bellary district has reported that out of 46 mass marriages, 15 child marriages were prevented in the district on 15.03.2005.

• All members of the Say No to Child Marriage Campaign related the difficulties they face regarding stopping child marriages in the areas in which they work.

• They reiterated the fact that the minor penalties imposed on erring officials hardly acts as a deterrent to inaction to prevent child marriages.

• The question of accountability is primary in this battle. Certain officials should be made accountable to stop these marriages. They should be penalized if they fail to prevent marriages from happening. They should have a network of informants.

• One suggestion from the Campaign is to spread awareness of child marriage through the Child Rights Clubs which have been recently instituted in all schools.

• NGOs should only be information givers and not implementation or law enforcement agencies. 

• The Campaign members requested the Secretary to ensure that the names and addresses of the Child Marriage Prevention officers be widely published among the public and put up on notice boards in all Panchayat offices. She agreed to this.

• Regarding registration of marriages, the Campaign members strongly felt that the Panchayat be made the authority vested with the power to register marriages.

• The Campaign suggested a one-day meeting between the Government and the NGOs on how to constructively act to put an end to this evil once and for all.

• The Secretary agreed and will fix up a co-ordination meeting between the various government departments that will be leading this effort and NGOs within a month from now.