No More Child Brides
(Please be aware that the US also has a horrible record on child brides. We have nothing for which to congratulate ourselves in this area)
(For this woman's brave work, she has received threats of rape and death, and a number of kidnapping attempts)
No More Child Brides
10/10/2023 by Arundhati Nath
Proclaiming that ‘no form of culture or religion should exploit women and children,’ one determined woman fights child marriages in India.
At an orientation camp in Tinwari, India, in 2017, Saarthi Trust challenges mothers and their daughters to take an oath to say no to child marriages. (Facebook)
Savitri* was not even 3 years old when she was ceremonially married to a boy three years older. Since she was just a toddler, she wasn’t told that she’d been married—she didn’t find out until after she got her first menstrual period. “I was surprised when I learned about my marriage, and didn’t want to go to my husband’s home. My parents did not heed my objections, and also pointed out that our family would be ostracized if I did not agree. I met Kriti didi [sister] during this time,” said the now-22-year-old, referring to Kriti Bharti, a rehabilitation psychologist and women’s rights activist from Jodhpur, in Savitri’s home state of Rajasthan.
Bharti helped annul Savitri’s marriage in 2022—now Savitri is studying for her bachelor’s degree in education with the goal of becoming a teacher.
Bharti founded her nonprofit, Saarthi Trust, in 2011 to fight child marriage and empower women and girls. Since then, she has helped legally annul 49 child marriages and prevented 1,700 more from being “solemnized” in ceremonial engagements. She has aided in the rehabilitation of 20,500 children and women, and has conducted orientation programs that resulted in 35,000 villagers taking oaths to resist child marriages.
With 15.6 million child brides, India has the highest number of such marriages in the world. Minor girls as young as a few days old are married to older boys, the matches arranged by their parents. Once the girls reach puberty, they are forced to live with their husband’s family. Despite laws outlawing the practice, child marriages are still common in India, leading to sexual and domestic abuse, underage pregnancies, school dropouts, dowry-related violence and deaths. “I’m working on eradicating the disease of child marriage, which is steeped in tradition. I don’t consider this a part of culture because no form of culture or religion should exploit women and children,” Bharti tells Ms.
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TrustKriti Bharti and the Saarthi Trust lead a training in Agolai, India, in 2017. (Saarthi Trust / Facebook)
For her work through Saarthi Trust, Bharti has received numerous awards. She has been honored as a changemaker by the organization Girls Not Brides. In late 2022, she was presented with the Youth Human Rights Champion Award by the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue. Still, she said it is challenging to run an organization like Saarthi with limited funds: “When a girl comes to me, her livelihood, education and shelter … everything becomes my responsibility. Counseling is just a small part of the whole process.” Despite this, she said she’s never turned down a request for assistance from any girl. Her only condition is that the girls must go back to school to complete their education. Bharti dreams of a time when child marriages are known only as a terrible thing of the past. “One day,” she said, “we should be able to say, ‘Once upon a time, there was something called child marriage.’”
*Her name has been changed to protect her identity.
https://msmagazine.com/2023/10/10/child-marriage-india-saarthi-trust/