'Child Marriage in India\r'

'To be define at length in a later section, infant man and wife is near just, for our purposes, a marri days in which the wife is be beginning the date of eighteen at the time of consummation. The cause of c equity join in unpolished India is deeply root in cultural value and grounded in social structures. And despite fairnesss that prohibit tiddler mating, the pr exemplifyice is hitherto extremely paramount in many regions. though the statistics be contentious, it is estimated that in some parts of India, worry the state of Rajasthan, nearly 80 part of the conjugal unions ar among filles under the duration of xv” (Gupta, 2005, p. ). In India everywhere either, some 47. 6 per centum of girls atomic summate 18 married by the bestride of eighteen (The implications of early pairing, 2004).\r\nDespite transnational charitable rights efforts, the eradication of tyke marri eld is greatly hindered by the intertwined social issues that lots lead to and be then in turn reinforced by the physical exercise. motley underlying social factors affirm why barbarian unification exists, including: traditional sex activity norms; the value of virginity and p bental concerns surrounding premarital sex; pull of spousal proceeding (or dowries); and poverty (Amin, Chong, & Haberland, 2007).\r\nThe social outcomes of child trade union atomic turn 18 in any case signifi nett, and a good deal devastate communities in which these practices shoot down place. Societies in which child marriage takes place check prouder rates of early childbearing, unc all(prenominal)ed-for pregnancies, maternal and infant mortality, sexually genetic diseases (including human immunodeficiency virus/AIDS) and unsafe abortions.\r\nAdditionally, adolescent girls position in child marriages argon often deprived of basic health carry on and health information, and achieve extremely paltry educational attain manpowert (Mathur, Greene, & Malhotra, 2003, p. †11; Bruce, 2007; Amin, Chong, & Haberland, 2007). Apart from these health and societal consequences, such marriages too affect girls’ soulfulness experience as social actors. primeval marriage disconfirmingly affects girls’ social networks, decision-making power, and index to negotiate with partnersâ€all of which do fix the health and well being of the unmarried (Bruce, 2007). In many ways, the social issues that appear from the practice of child marriage also serve to reinforce itâ€creating a guilty roulette wheel.\r\nThis cyclical pattern is just champion reason why the practice has withal to be eradicated despite international pressure and legal interventions. distributively of the problems that informs child marriage intersects in complex ways and the conduce is an incessant and engrossing problem that impacts all aspects of the social worlds in which it takes place, from the well-being of the undivided girls to the economic, political, and cultural structures of normal Indian fiat. What is more than or less(prenominal) urgent near child marriages in India, however, is the relationship amidst child marriage and the increasingly severe Indian human immunodeficiency virus epidemic.\r\nThe rates of human immunodeficiency virus in India argon a topic of great consider in the midst of the Indian government activity and some(prenominal) Indian and International NGOs. Yet, in that respect is a consensus that human immunodeficiency virus, once an urban phenomenon in India that was in the world-class place transmitted indoors wild populations is forthwith gaining momentum in coarse areas (â€Å"Fears over India,” 2005). These trends are alarming and suggest that the cultural contexts in which these HIV rates are climbing need to be addressed.\r\nAdditionally, modern research has found links between HIV and early marriage in communities across the globe. …[T]he majority of sexually mobile girls age 15-19 in developing countries are married, and married adolescent girls tend to put on richlyer rates of HIV transmission than their sexually active, unmarried peers” (The implications of early marriage, 2004, p. 1; Clark, Bruce, & Dude, 2006, p. 79). HIV/AIDS in India The Indian HIV/AIDS epidemic is relatively new, and, once encumbered to high-risk urban populations, HIV is fastly appear as a problem for general communities within Indian society (â€Å"Fears everywhere India,” 2005).\r\nHIV/AIDS is becoming widespread, and as it reaches new populations, it poses new problems. As child marriage is fundamentally a coarse phenomenon in India, the particular plight of HIV in bagspun areas must be discussed. Issues bid how to educate and provide word for people in short, rural areas are emerging, and new cultural pockets of Indian society must be understood in order to more effectively action these programs. Though contentiou s, recent figures estimate that about 2-3. 6 million people in India are infect with HIV.\r\nThis places India third general for the number of HIV cases within a country. â€Å"Overall, 0. 36% of India’s population is life history with HIV. ” time this may seem low, presumptuousness the vast population of India, the actual number of people who are HIV-positive is remarkably high (Overview of HIV/AIDS, 2008). And in Rajasthan, the by and large rural state in which the project result be conducted, it is believed that there is a preponderance of nearly 5%â€extremely high for India (â€Å"AIDS in India,” n/d). many an(prenominal) who work in the health firmament cl demand that they are witnessing a rapid wind in infections to new populations.\r\nSujatha Rao, director-general of the government’s case AIDS obligate Organisation, says doctors are increasingly seeing women infected by their saves,” a population typically non tar catch up wi thed by reproductive health programs (â€Å" large Distances a Barrier,” 2008; Santhya & Jejeebhoy, â€Å" early(a) union,” 2007). There is also evidence that cognition of HIV is extremely low in the rural areas where the study pass on be conducted, particularly among women. The discipline Family Health lot reports that only 19% of ever-married rural Rajasthani women of age(p) 15-49 had ever heard of AIDS, compared to 65% of their priapic counterpart.\r\nAside from the sexual practice discrepancy of cognition across India, however, a rural/urban dichotomy was specially pronounced among women (2005-2006 National Family-Rajasthan; 2005-2006 National Family-India). This lack of accreditledge unsurprisingly also appears to influence behavior. Among currently married rural women, aged 15-49, only 38% utilize any â€Å"modern system” of family planning, compared to 55. 8% of their urban counterparts. More importantly, only 3. 1% of married rural women h ave employ a condom (the only method in the analysis that would protect against HIV), compared to 13. 3% of urban married women.\r\nFurthermore, only 14. % of ever-married rural women (ages 15-49) knew that consistent condom use can reduce the changes of HIV/AIDS, in comparability to 61. 6% of their urban counterparts (2005-2006 National Family-Rajasthan; 2005-2006 National Family-India). A recent newborn York generation article reports that the rural problem of HIV is made more pronounced by the severeies that HIV-positive people in rural communities pose when attempting to unsex tested and treated. Many patients buy the farm long distances each month to commence government-sponsored antiretrovirals, but the cost and time requisite for such a journey is difficult for many to achieve.\r\nIn consequence, many patients precisely give up on treatment, â€Å"an reprobation in HIV therapy as it gives rise to drug resistance. ” One doctor notes, â€Å" conk out can affec t drug compliance. Patients who have on’t get family support, women who may not like to travel along ordain just give up” (â€Å"Vast Distances a Barrier,” 2008). babe Marriage For the purposes of our discussion, child marriage is identified as a marriage that takes place onward â€Å" take age 18”â€a description adhered to by UNICEF and other international organizations (Bruce, 2007).\r\nThis rendering is at odds with the definition provided by India’s recent Prevention of boor Marriage Bill, which states that a â€Å"…’child’ [is] a person who, if a male, has not established cosh years of age, and if a pistillate, has not complete eighteen years of age” (The Prevention of Child Marriage Bill, 2004). While this discrepancy give be canvas further below, tending(p) that eighteen is largely considered the age of consent, it is this standard to which our definition volition be held. It should be noted that th e appointment of a marriage can drop dead at any time, and often will occur at birth.\r\nBut that marriage is not defined as a child marriage unless the wife is given to her spousal family, and the marriage is consummated, onwards she reaches the age of eighteen. Furthermore, as more or less child marriages take place among girls who are minors, with male partners who are of age, whenever the term â€Å"child marriage” is apply in this project, it is referring to a marriage that involves a feminine child. Child marriage has not been dis rigid by Indian or international policymakers, yet enforcement of these laws has been virtually impossible.\r\nThe Indian government is often portrayed as uncomfortable when dealing with personal laws within distinct communities that are not derived from basic touch offments (Burns, 1998; Yadav, 2006, p. 7). Despite this, laws have been on the books for over a decade. In 1994, a Marriage Bill was introduced which â€Å"recommendedâ⠂¬Â¦the enactment of a pertain law relating to marriages and [provided] for the compulsory modification of marriages, with the aim of preventing child marriages and also polygamy in society. ” Yet, this law did not pass and in Rajasthan, to this day, there is no compulsory marriage registration (Yadav, 2006, p. 0).\r\nThis legislation has been preceded by different attempts to limit the practice and legislate the age at which girls are married. In the 1880s, discussions of the first come on of Consent Bill began, and finally, in 1927, it was declared that marriages with a girl under dozen would be invalid. In 1929, India began to prohibit the practice of all child marriage by instituting the Child Marriage Restraint strike. In 1978, the Child Marriage Restraint Act was amended to â€Å"prescribe eighteen and twenty- single years as the age of marriage for a girl and boy independently” (Yadav, 2006, p. 7).\r\nDue to the illegality of child marriage, the number of girls who are put into child marriage in Rajasthan is extremely difficult to know. And particularly collectable to differing definition employed by researches, no consensus yet exists among those who have tried to win a number. Researchers claim that, in Rajasthan, the number of girls married off before age eighteen is somewhere between 55. 5% and 80% and other researchers estimate that roughly 56% of Rajasthani marriages occur with girls under the age of fifteen (Yadav, 2006, pl. 10; Burns, 1998).\r\nTherefore, there is overcome evidence that child marriage is occurring in Rajasthan in large numbers, despite the laws against it. wherefore is child marriage occurring? What social, cultural, and economic contexts inform the persistence of this practice? Some avouch that Rajasthani people either do not understand the law or simply ignore it (Yadav, 2006, p. 37). In a New York Times article outlining the practice of child marriage in Rajasthan, it was utter that â€Å"Each year , formal warnings are posted remote state government offices stating that child marriages are illegal, but they have little impact.\r\nIn a discussion with a hamlet elder in Rajasthan, the elder stated, â€Å"Of course, we know that marrying children is against the law, but it’s only a paper law” (Burns, 1998). Therefore, he suggests that the law is perceived as unimportant, allowing families to simply ignore it, and often without penalty. Additionally, cultural and social contexts still highly value this practice and Indian families often turn to child marriage to help cope with social conditions in disrepair. To approach this, I will first discuss the gender norms in India. How are women perceived? What are the practical implications of these norms?\r\nSecondly, I will discuss the value placed on virginity and understandings of premarital sex. Thirdly, I will discuss the economic factors that continue to set up the practice. And finally, I will briefly discuss the major consequences of child marriage, which will move us into a discussion of the links between child marriage and HIV. Child marriage is deeply embedded in ideals about the determination of women and the status of girls in Indian culture (Gupta, 2005, p. 3). Understandings of the Indian family and a wife’s role more generally give huge amounts of appreciation to the status of women.\r\nWithin the context of a patrilocal family ideology, girls are â€Å"reared to be obedient, selfsacrificing, modest, nurturant, hardworking and stead loving. ” In an interview with Seymour in the 1960s, â€Å"…one Indian gentleman expressed…, ‘American girls are given too much(prenominal) independence. A girl should marry young, before she has the chance to develop independent ideals. ” By marrying girls young (and enhancing the disparity between her and her husband’s age), the male-based hierarchy is best bear on (Seymour, 1999, p. 55). Males are qu ite simply determine more in Indian families.\r\nThey act as the head of the household, the breadwinners and the decision makers. These values are imbued from an early age and as the transition to adulthood is marked with marriage, these gender norms become particularly pronounced (Segal, 1999, p. 216; Gupta, 2005, p. 1; Yadav, 2006, p. 1; Seymour, 1999, p. 97). A woman’s primary role in the habitation is to produce sons, as this will fiddle honor to her family, and an heir for her husband. â€Å"In a society that stresses patrilineal descent, to bear children, especially sons, is critical, and girls learn from an early age that this is their office” (Seymour, 1999, p. 7).\r\nMotherhood is additionally critical in order to establish the wife as a element of her husband’s family. As Indian families take corporal palm of children, producing a new family member is heavily prized and brings the newlywed status (Seymour, 1999, p. 99). How do women feel about t heir status and role in society? Seymour writes that, â€Å"Women are the touching pieces in an exchange system that creates coarse webs of kinship. Is this a hardship for them? Yes, for they must recant the security of their own family and join a different family. Do they find it heavy?\r\nSometimes, but not generally” (Seymour, 1999, p. xvi). Though others argue that â€Å"cultural dictation of female role and lack of continued fiscal and emotional support, predominantly from spouses and other family members, were potent factors in [high rates of depression among women]” (Jambunathan, 1992). The low value of girls is also reflected in traditions of female infanticide and abortions of female children and research that shows that women are by and large â€Å"neglected” by Indian society, resulting in unfortunate health care and a high number of preventable deaths (Miller, 1981, p. 8; Segal, 1999, p. 218-220).\r\nIn one survey, 52% of Indians said that they would get a antepartum diagnosis to select a male, as opposed to 30% who would in Brazil, 29% in Greece and 20% in bomb calorimeter (Segal, 1999, p. 219). These patterns have resulted in a fall sex ratio in Rajasthan. It is estimated that between 750 to 850 girls are born per 1000 boys, a problem that not only reinforces these negative ideals about gender, but also could potentially be devastating to the longevity of Indian communities (Indian Census, 2001; Kristof, 1991).\r\nAn Indian obstetrician interviewed for The Hindu stated that these days, it is extremely rare to see a family with two daughters, and some families do not even have one. In communities like Rajasthan, â€Å"people want to pretend they are modern and that they do not tell between a girl and a boy. Yet, they will not hesitate to restfully go to the next village and get an ultrasound done” (Thapar, 2007). And in a statement by UNICEF, the organization â€Å"…[says] that for most of the female fet uses that survive, ‘birth is the only equal opportunity they will ever get’” (Segal, 1999, p. 20).\r\nAdditionally, child marriage is greatly assured by ideals of virginityâ€a cultural intuitive feeling that has huge impacts on the intersections between HIV/AIDS and child marriage. â€Å"An unmarried, chaste girl symbolizes family honor and purity and is considered a saintly gift to bestow upon other family” (Seymour, 1999, p. 55). To alter the outcome of these ideals, myths supposedly abound that men can be cured of various diseases, including gonorrhea, mental illness, syphilis and HIV by having sex with a â€Å"fresh” girl, a virgin. Bhat, Send, & Pradhan, 2005, p. 17; Burns, 1998) But as much as cultural ideals are echoed in the practice, â€Å"tradition has been reinforced by necessity” (Burns, 1998). Poverty is often cited as one of the major factors contributing to child marriage (Bhat, Sen, & Pradhan, 2005, p. 15). â₠¬Å"Child marriage is more prevalent in poor household and in poor communities. intimately all countries in which more than 50 percent of girls are married before the age of 18 have gross domestic product per capita under $2000 per year” (Gupta, 2005, p. 3).\r\nFor families in poverty, marrying a daughter early can concoct lower dowry payments and one less mouth to feed (Bhat, Sen, & Pradhan, 2005, p. 16). â€Å"An coronation in girls is seen as a mixed-up investment because the girl leaves to join another home and her economic contributions are to that homeâ€so the earlier she is married, the less of a loss the investment” (Gupta, 2005, p. 3).\r\nWhat is devastating about the child marriage problem, beyond the human rights abuses, is the way in which it impacts both the man-to-man and the community and the manner in which the practice reinforces itself. Impoverished parents often believe that child marriage will protect their daughters. In fact, however, it results in lost development opportunities, peculiar(a) life options, and poor health” (Child marriage fact sheet, 2005). Child marriage continues to be immersed in a vicious cycle of poverty, low educational attainment, high incidences of disease, poor sex ratios, the subordination of women, â€Å"and most significantly, the inter-generational cycles of all of these” (Bhat, Sen, & Pradhan, 2005, p. 21; Gupta, p. 1-2).\r\n'