Silchar :  The Silchar Press Club on Thursday (June 15, 2023) organized a media orientation on child protection issues in the Cachar district. The programme, participated by close to 30 journalists, was organized considering the fact that media can play a major role in creating public awareness and influencing policy decisions, particularly at a time when the government of Assam is going on a mission mode to eliminate the social practice of child marriage.

The orientation programme assumes significance as media reports are a critical source of information for policy making and public awareness. The Silchar Press Clubs intends to support the building of the capacities of journalists in the Cachar district and adjoining areas.

M Gangabhushan, Professor of the Social Work department of the Assam University at Silchar while speaking on the issue of child marriage said unfortunately child marriages used to be part and parcel of the culture in most societies in the country.

“Child marriages were part and parcel of our society and there were societies where child marriages are celebrated earlier. However, things are changing and now we look at the issue from a gender perspective. The cases of child marriages are threatening one of the sustainable development goals (SDG), which is gender equality,” Professor Gangabhushan said.

“The patriarchal mindset of the society also forces most people to look at girls as always dependent on others. So breaking these social customs and practices are a big challenge,” he said adding that child marriages are also a deceptive strategy for human trafficking.

There are instances where girls and women were trafficked in the name of child marriage even to countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, and Myanmar,” said Professor Gangabhushan.

Stressing that there is a need to create an atmosphere where no child marriages are tolerated, the educationist said that it is high time we take the discourse on child marriages to social institutions so that women, particularly the mothers are made aware of the issue.

General Secretary of the Silchar Press Club, Shankar Dey presided over the programme and also moderated the programme.

Senior Advocate and member of the Cachar POCSO court,BithikaAcharjee also highlighted the need for a change of mindset of the people to stop the social practice like child marriage. “There are many provisions in the law to stop child marriages. Initially, we have the Prohibition of Child Marriages Act (PCMA).

Now after 2006, we have the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. However, child marriages are still taking place,” said Acharjee while adding that there is a greater need to make people aware of the ill effects of child marriages.

Chairperson of the Child Welfare Committee, Cachar, Sujit Kumar Nath pointed out that while in our society we worship Goddesses like Lakshmi, Saraswati, and Durga, we fail to show the same respect to the women at home. “Our religion asks us to respect those from the feminine gender but in reality, we don’t practice that.

We read about Social reformers like Raja Rammohan Rai and Scholar like Ishwar Chandra Bidyasagar who took up steps for women’s empowerment centuries back but we have failed to learn from that and that is the reason we need to discuss the issue of child marriage even now,” Nath said.

Sharing his experience from the field in preventing child marriages, Nath said that there needs to be a sustained campaign at the school level to make the children, particularly the girls aware of their rights as enshrined in the constitution of India. “I believe if we can establish some clubs for adolescent people in remote areas where they are taught about their rights through some mentors, it will help stop the problem,” said Nath.

Speaking on the occasion Diba Roy, founding member of the Nivedita Nari Sangathan, said that the steps for protection of the children should start from the moment children are conceived by the mother. “There are many schemes initiated by the government for the protection of the children.

Taking from schemes for availing nutrition to pregnant mothers to acts that prohibit child labour—we have many schemes. But still, we are talking about issues like child marriages as most of the schemes are not implemented properly, which needs to be addressed,” she said.

“Apart from these, different sections of society as well as the civic and police administration needs to be made aware of the issues. Although there are provisions for imposing POCSO in some cases of child marriages, the police often register the cases under IPC sections which affects the victim girls.

So the police officials, as well as the district administration officials, also need to be made aware of the issue,” said Diba Roy. It may be mentioned here that in the Cachar district, 29.9 percent of women between 20-24 years are married before the legal age of 18 years. The incidence is close to Assam’s average of 31 percent (NFHS-5).