During the second government crackdown on unlawful child marriages in the area this year, more than 1,000 people were arrested on Tuesday in India’s far northeast, according to police.
According to UN statistics, India is home to more than 220 million child brides, however the incidence of child marriages has significantly decreased over the past century.
In a previous abolition push in February, the state of Assam had previously detained 4,000 individuals, including registrars who authorized minor marriages and parents of married couples.
The state’s chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma announced that police had launched a second phase of the campaign “in a special operation which began in the early hours of dawn”.
“The number of arrests is likely to rise,” he wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “The number now stands at 1,039.”
Sarma ran for office on a promise of eradicating all child marriages in his state by the year 2026.
India’s official marriage age is 18, but millions of kids are forced to get married when they’re younger, especially in the country’s poorer regions.
Handcuffed man behind prison bars. Arrested criminal male person imprisoned.
In an effort to increase their financial security, lots of parents marry off their kids.
The effects can be disastrous, with girls leaving school to prepare meals and maintain the house for their husbands and developing health issues from giving birth at an early age.
In a major decision from 2017, India’s top court declared that having sex with a wife who is underage constituted rape.
