How an Indian farmer uses sports to save girls from early marriage

devex.com

India is home to 223 million child brides — the world’s highest. India accounts for 1 in 3 of the world’s child brides, UNICEF data shows.

By Sanket Jain // 12 December 2023

Girls from more than 50 villages train under Terase, where they learn multiple sports, the most common being kabaddi. Photo by: Sanket Jain

When Pandurang Terase, a sugarcane and rice farmer from India’s Maharashtra state, failed to turn his passion for kabaddi into a career, he ventured on a mission to train rural girls in sports for free. He never envisioned his work would someday save thousands from early and child marriage. 

Every minute, 23 girls are married globally before they turn 18, according to the United Nations Population Fund. That’s over 12 million young women every year. So widespread is the problem that nearly 650 million women alive today became brides before turning 18 years old. India is home to 223 million child brides, the world’s highest. India accounts for one in three of the world’s child brides, UNICEF data shows.

Tiếp tục đọc “How an Indian farmer uses sports to save girls from early marriage”

Child marriage could be history by 2030, or last 300 more years

By age 18 years, Lalitbai was a married mother of three children. She became a child bride when she was 13 years old. At age 32 years, Lalitbai was a widow and cast out of her extended family. With no money or education, she worked tirelessly as a day labourer, eventually starting her own small bakery. She now speaks openly, with neighbours and in local gatherings, about stopping child marriage. Lalitbai lives in India, the country with the largest number of child brides worldwide.

 Yet India is also making progress in reducing child marriage. According to UNICEF’s Is an End to Child Marriage within Reach? Latest Trends and Future Prospects, 2023 Update, released on May 3, 2023, since 2012, the percentage of young women aged 20–24 years who were married as children worldwide has fallen from 23% to 19%, and a substantial portion of this progress is driven by reductions in India.

 In the past decade the prevalence of child marriage in this country has declined from 38% to 23%.

Tiếp tục đọc “Child marriage could be history by 2030, or last 300 more years”