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Context
In India, as in most parts of the world, the practice of child marriage is closely related to many social, economic, and cultural factors. Child marriage is a violation of children’s rights and has lasting effects on growth and well-being. The effects of child marriage are also seen at the societal level, perpetuating the negative effects of poverty, gender discrimination, illiteracy, and malnutrition. Child marriage rates in India steeply declined from 47% in NFHS-3 to 27% in NFHS-4 but declined slowly to 23% in NFHS-5. However, eight states in India have higher than national average child marriage rates, hence requiring continued program interventions. These states are namely West Bengal (42%), Bihar (41%), Tripura (40%), Jharkhand (32%), Assam (32%), Andhra Pradesh (29%), Rajasthan (25%) and Telangana (24%) (UNFPA, UNICEF, 2022; Gausman et al 2023).
A child marriage intervention program review conducted by ICRW (2011) found that the strategies adolescent programs prioritize are empowering girls with information, skills, and support networks; educating and mobilizing parents and community members; enhancing the accessibility and quality of formal schooling for girls; offering economic support and incentives for girls and their families and to a less extent focus on fostering an enabling legal and policy framework. There is also evidence that the prevalence of child marriage has linkages to a lack of autonomy and decision-making among girls (UNFPA-UNICEF, 2021); however, the family has less incentive for child marriage if the daughter gets employed (Malhotra and Elnakib, 2021). Social norms regulate the order of marriage among sisters, where daughters are often married before sons of a similar age (Roest, 2016). This suggests that rather than focusing solely on a single level, such as the community or individual, interventions aimed at reducing the prevalence of child marriage should attempt to address the drivers of child marriage at multiple levels, using multiple approaches and understanding how processes at each level reinforce each other (Rasmussen et al. 2021, Achyut et al. 2020, Nanda et al., 2015).