From a ‘hopeless end’ to endless hope

It was during an day successful June 2025 that Monija Khatun, a pupil successful people 11, decided to dial the helpline fig 1098. She was reporting the wedding of a 14-year-old classmate that had been fixed with an big man. “One time she told maine successful schoolhouse that she did not privation to get married,” Monija says. After that call, the constabulary intervened, and the matrimony was prevented.

During the twelvemonth 2025, Monija, a pupil of Gajdharpara High School, prevented six kid marriages, including 2 of her classmates. “They were minors, but wanted to tally distant from location and get married. After the involution of the authorities, their matrimony was stopped. They inactive travel to schoolhouse but bash not speech to me,” she says.

Earlier this year, Monija was 1 of 18 girls honoured by the Murshidabad District medication arsenic a ‘Kanyashree Yodhya’ (girl warrior). The section newspapers covered it, she says, but she has nary photograph oregon paper sum of the event.

In 2013, the West Bengal authorities launched the Kanyashree Scheme, a conditional currency transportation programme to amended the presumption of girls and trim kid marriage. While the fig of beneficiaries of the strategy has astir touched 1 crore, kid matrimony continues to beryllium a situation for policymakers successful the State.

Why is kid matrimony inactive precocious successful West Bengal? | Explained 

Murshidabad is 1 of West Bengal’s economically poorer districts. Here, men migrate to enactment extracurricular the State and women rotation beedis to adhd to their household income. The territory has 1 of the highest numbers of kid marriages successful the State. The National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5) records that 55.4% of women betwixt 20 and 24 years were joined earlier the property of 18 years successful Murshidabad district, among the highest successful the country. In West Bengal, NFHS-5 figures authorities that 42% of women successful this property radical were joined earlier they became adults.

Now, of the 254 gram panchayats successful Murshidabad, 7 person been identified arsenic child-marriage-free: 5 are successful Berhampur artifact and 2 successful Hariharpara block. This means that determination has been nary reported lawsuit for six months prior. In the run against the signifier are girls similar Monija, non-profits, and the administration.

Girls, boys, and their perceived roles

On a December afternoon, Monija, on with a twelve students, 10 girls and 2 boys, is engaged successful a store connected sex successful a schoolroom astatine Gakunda Primary School. The classrooms are decorated with photographs of nationalist icons: thinker Swami Vivekananda, writer Kazi Nazrul Islam, and India’s 2nd President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, among others.

On a portion of illustration paper, 2 groups of students effort to find what society’s sex roles for boys and girls are. ‘Boys thrust a bike, girls bash not thrust a bike;’ ‘Boys spell to enactment outside;’ ‘Girls cook, boys bash not cook,’ the children constitute successful Bengali.

A societal idiosyncratic poses a fewer questions to the boys. “Do you deliberation women should work? Will you privation your woman to work?,” the societal idiosyncratic asks. The older lad answers, “No, I bash not privation my woman to work. If she has money, past she volition springiness maine attitude.”

At Gakunda Primary School, children and young adults clasp sessions connected sex each month. It is astatine these sessions that the children are told astir kid matrimony and the 1098 helpline. Mousumi Khatun, a people 12 pupil who is regular astatine these sessions, says that girls whose marriages are fixed abruptly halt talking to friends, halt attending school. “One time we abruptly perceive that they are astatine their in-laws’ place,” she says.

About a twelvemonth ago, Mousumi had to combat her ain battle. She inactive remembers the date: March 21, 2024. “I did not person a father, truthful my household told maine I would person to get married. I was 17 years aged past and told them I’d spell to the constabulary if they forced me,” Mousumi says. Like Monija, Mousumi is besides a Kanyashree Yodha, and was honoured by the Murshidabad District Administration for her combat against kid marriage.

Prevention and prosecution

Outside the two-storeyed bluish and achromatic bureau of Bhakuri II gram panchayat, declared child-marriage free, determination is simply a recently erected plaque successful Bengali, which declares the gram panchayat child-marriage free. It besides warns that if immoderate incidental of kid matrimony comes to light, enactment volition beryllium taken. Inside the panchayat office, the pradhan (head), Chameli Bibi, and lawman pradhan Dibyendu Mondal accidental that getting to this constituent has been an uphill task.

“We person progressive schools, section assemblage leaders, adjacent temples and mosques to guarantee that we enactment an extremity to the practice. At a panchayat level, we effort to archer radical however kid matrimony is not successful the involvement of the parent and child. When thing works, we archer household members that they volition beryllium booked by the police,” Chameli says. Announcements are made from mosques aft Friday prayers to archer radical not to wed their children young.

Soma Bhowmick, erstwhile chairperson of Child Welfare Committee of Murshidabad district, has dealt with the contented of kid matrimony from adjacent quarters. Bhowmick who runs Suprava Panchashila Mahila Uddyog Samity (SPMUS), a non-government organisation, says that immoderate Imams who person conducted kid marriages person been booked nether the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 (PCMA). Bhowmick explains that determination are 2 ways to combat kid marriage: prevention and prosecution.

Bhowmick has been interacting with Priyanka Biswas of the British Asian Trust, a non-profit that runs Kawach, a programme for wide kid development. One of its missions is to halt kid matrimony successful West Bengal and different States of the country. Bhowmick says that of late, determination has been a hike successful cases of girls eloping and getting married.

Once a miss beneath the property of 18 is married, not lone tin her parents beryllium booked nether PCMA, but the lad oregon the antheral she marries tin besides beryllium charged with Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO), a stringent instrumentality that makes bail difficult. Bhowmick and different societal workers statement connected which is the amended attack to combat kid marriage: community-driven prevention oregon prosecution.

Both Bhowmick and Biswas, however, hold that erstwhile FIRs are registered and insignificant girls sent to State-run homes, which deficiency basal infrastructure, it becomes hard for them to instrumentality to regular life. “It is usually aft a combat successful the household that a miss decides to tally away,” Biswas says, reflecting connected her years of acquisition successful the tract of kid protection.

Bengal, UNICEF absorption connected assemblage information to extremity kid marriage

The fallout of kid marriage

Despite the challenges, it is women who are astatine the forefront of the combat against kid marriage. Four of the 5 gram panchayats successful Berhampur that person been declared kid marriage-free are administered by women.

Not acold from Bhowmick’s bureau is that of the panchayat of Niralispara Goaljan Gram Panchayat, which was declared kid marriage-free successful October 2025. A poster against kid matrimony hangs outside. Usnahara Bibi, the pradhan, says that warring kid matrimony was similar warring polio. “Even if determination is 1 reported lawsuit of kid marriage, the gram panchayat volition nary longer beryllium child-marriage free,” she says.

Surrounded by Anganwadi and ASHA workers from the gram panchayat, Usnahara says that they play a important relation successful preventing kid marriage. Kanak Bhattacharya, an Anganwadi idiosyncratic for the past 3 decades, says, “I archer the women that if a histrion starts to angiosperm earlier a peculiar age, the flowers don’t bloom properly. There are respective complications associated with aboriginal pregnancy. The children are calved underweight, and specified pregnancies are besides a hazard to women.”

Teenage pregnancies, which are an result of kid marriage, are a large challenge. Arjun Dutta, the territory kid extortion serviceman (DCPO) of Murshidabad district, points retired that “teenage pregnancies were arsenic precocious arsenic 21% successful the territory successful 2024-25” arsenic per the HMIS (Health Management and Information System) portal. “After the territory medication started an assertive run against kid matrimony successful mid-2025, teen pregnancies person reduced to 17% successful some Berhampur artifact and Hariharpara block,” says Dutta.

Sitting successful a tiny bureau successful the territory administrative complex, Dutta cautiously reads figures connected the fig of kid marriages that person been prevented successful the district: betwixt June and December, the fig stands astatine 1,081, helium says, quoting from the Government of West Bengal’s Child Marriage Reporting and Tracking System (CMRTS) portal. In Murshidabad, this fig was 471 for 2024-25. Across its 2 constabulary districts, Murshidabad and Janipur, the territory recorded 118 FIRs for kid matrimony and 152 cases nether POCSO, betwixt May and October 2025.

A poster highlighting the practices of kid matrimony and kid labour, drawn successful a child-like scrawl, hangs crossed the partition down the DCPO’s chair. Dutta says that with children having entree to compartment phones and the internet, the fig of elopement cases is connected the rise. He speaks astir a insignificant miss from a colony successful Murshidabad who was rescued from Haryana. “I consciousness that determination is simply a request for schools to person counsellors with whom children tin interact daily,” helium says.

Girls astatine the forefront

Murshidabad’s Additional District Magistrate (Development) Chirantan Pramanik says that determination is simply a request for “drastic steps” to enactment an extremity to kid marriage. He says anyone done the concatenation of engagement is being booked: parents, priests, decorators, caterers, and adjacent panchayat functionaries. Referring to the ample representation of Murshidabad territory successful his office, helium adds that blocks bordering Bangladesh person traditionally recorded higher instances of kid marriages. “We person done capable consciousness and sensitising. People are aware. The lone mode (to combat kid marriage) is action,” the ADM says.

In the mediate of the conversation, the ADM calls inferior officials and says that determination person been reports of 7 kid births astatine Lalbagh Subdivisional Hospitals, wherever the mothers are minors. He directs that FIRs beryllium registered. However, a fewer days aft his orders, nary FIR was registered, due to the fact that this would publication the fathers of the newborns nether POCSO. Across West Bengal, the absorption has by and ample shifted from punishment to prevention, from fear-driven compliance to shared work for kid protection.

Nupur Biswas, a people 12 pupil astatine Nimtala High School successful Berhampur, says her parent was joined erstwhile she was lone 14 years old. After her begetter died successful 2019, her parent ensured that she went to school. Idris Ali, the artifact coordinator, says that Nupur is simply a bully pupil who runs a Kanyashree nine astatine her school.

Nupur, 1 of the 18 Kanyashree Yodha, has pasted notes connected an unplastered, unpainted partition successful beforehand of her survey table astatine home, successful Shibpur village, successful Hathinagar gram panchayat. “My target: lone for B.Sc Nursing 2026,” says 1 note. On another, a fig of mathematics formulae. On 1 portion of insubstantial successful bold letters, is: “Hopeless extremity oregon endless hope”.

India has committed to ending kid matrimony by 2030 done the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

shivsahay.s@thehindu.co.in

Edited by Sunalini Mathew