Ending Child Marriage in India — Progress, Gaps & Policy Challenges 

India has committed to ending child marriage by 2030 under the UN Sustainable Development Goals. While significant progress has been made, the recent review of the Bal Vivah Mukt Bharat Abhiyan highlights that challenges remain deeply entrenched across regions and social groups.

The NFHS data shows remarkable improvement:

• Child marriage has fallen from 47.4% (2005-06) → 23.3% (2019-21)

Yet progress is uneven and unequal, reflecting the intersection of:

• Poverty

• Education access

• Gender inequality

• Social norms

• Institutional capacity

This makes the issue a critical area of study for UPSC — across governance, welfare delivery, and social transformation.

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🟢 Regional Patterns — A Story of Unequal Progress

High child marriage prevalence among women aged 18–29 years persists in:

• West Bengal

• Bihar

• Tripura

Followed closely by:

• Jharkhand

• Andhra Pradesh

• Assam

• Telangana

• Madhya Pradesh

• Rajasthan

These trends show that structural vulnerability drives the practice rather than isolated cultural attitudes.

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⚖️ Poverty–Education–Child Marriage Nexus

Data confirms a strong socio-economic correlation.

📉 Wealth & Child Marriage

• 40% of girls from the lowest wealth quintile married below 18

• Only 8% from the highest wealth quintile

🎓 Education & Child Marriage

• 48% girls with no education married before 18

• Only 4% among girls with higher education

👉 Education acts as a protective factor

👉 Poverty increases risk

This highlights the need for capability-enhancing policies rather than punitive or symbolic measures.

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🛡️ Legal Framework — Strong Law, Weak Implementation

The Prevention of Child Marriage Act (PCMA), 2006, is the primary legislation.

However:

• NCRB data shows low reporting & low conviction

• Many marriages remain socially sanctioned but legally invisible

• Enforcement capacity varies across states

⚠ Emerging concern

Stringent application of POCSO in consensual adolescent relationships has led to:

• Criminalisation of young couples

• Families pushing girls into unsafe marriages

• Girls seeking unregistered medical or support services

This creates unintended harm to vulnerable adolescents.

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🏥 Health & Social Consequences

Child marriage is closely linked with:

• Early pregnancy

• High maternal & infant mortality

• Anaemia & malnutrition

• School dropout & income loss

• Intergenerational poverty

It also reinforces:

• Gender inequality

• Social dependency

• Economic marginalisation of women

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❓ Why Child Marriage Persists Despite Incentive Schemes?

States such as West Bengal provide:

• cash scholarships

• education-linked incentives

Yet high prevalence continues.

Reasons include:

• economic insecurity

• dowry-based social pressures

• unsafe schooling environments

• weak transport & sanitation infrastructure

• lack of secondary school access in rural areas

This shows that financial incentives alone are insufficient without:

• social support systems

• safe schooling environments

• gender-sensitive infrastructure

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🧩 Policy Gaps Identified

India’s progress is real — but fragmented.

Key challenges include:

1️⃣ Patchy state-level institutional capacity

2️⃣ Under-reporting & weak legal follow-through

3️⃣ Poor adolescent-health counselling networks

4️⃣ Limited engagement with communities & families

5️⃣ Lack of convergence between schemes

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🎯 Way Forward — From Awareness to Structural Reform

✔ Strengthen education retention

• safe transport for girls

• functional toilets

• secure school environments

• universal secondary schooling access

✔ Improve adolescent healthcare access

• non-judgmental counselling services

• reproductive health awareness

• family counselling & community mediation

✔ Develop community-based prevention models

• local women’s groups

• Panchayat-school-health worker coordination

• social norm transformation programs

✔ Balance law enforcement with welfare

• prevent coercive marriages

• avoid over-criminalisation of consensual adolescents

• ensure safe reporting mechanisms

✔ Target poverty–risk districts

• region-specific strategies

• migrant & tribal population interventions

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🧠 UPSC Relevance Mapping

📌 GS-1 — Society & Social Change

• patriarchy & gender inequality

• demographic & social indicators

📌 GS-2 — Welfare & Governance

• child rights

• SDGs & policy implementation gaps

• centre–state coordination

📌 GS-3 — Human Resource Development

• gendered development outcomes

• health-education-poverty interlinkages

📌 Ethics & Essay

Themes:

• Social justice & vulnerable sections

• Development vs social norms

• Policy effectiveness vs lived reality

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📝 Value-Add Conclusion for Mains

Use lines like:

“Ending child marriage requires moving beyond legal prohibition towards social-structural transformation — expanding education, gender-safe infrastructure, adolescent health services, and family economic resilience.”

“Without addressing poverty, gender inequality and education access, the gap between policy intent and ground reality will persist.”