Despite its hugely applauded human development indices and other laurels, child marriages in Kerala are still prevalent. This is evident from the recently released Census 2011 data.
What else the data say?
- There were 23,183 married girls below the age of 15 years in the State. That is, 0.604% of all girls in the State aged between 12 and 15 had entered wedlockprematurely and illegally. As many as 10,175 children were born to these child brides in the State.
- Malappuram, the most populous district in the State, logged the highest number (3,615) of married girls below age 15. But in percentage terms, this is below the overall State average (0.604).
- The districts exceeding the State average are Pathanamthitta (0.808 pc), Alappuzha (0.735 pc), Thiruvananthapuram (0.730 pc), Kollam (0.667 pc) and Kannur (0.665 pc). While Malappuram had a 0.594% incidence, Thrissur had the lowest figure of 0.493%.
These figures show that detecting and stopping child marriages are still a huge challenge to the dozens of Child Marriage Prohibition Officers (CMPOs) who have been appointed in the wake of enactment of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act in 2006
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