During economic hardship provoked by lockdown, experts have observed a rise in child marriage in India due to families marrying off their young girls in exchange for money, alleviating a financial burden.

Because of the Coronavirus pandemic, industries and schools around the world came to an abrupt halt in March, and many haven’t started up since. Some countries are experiencing worse economic situations than others, however India has one uniquely horrific trend: a rise in child marriages.

A UN report published earlier in the year predicted that the pandemic and the lockdown it induced could potentially lead to an additional 13 million child marriages between 2020 and 2030 all over the world. The impact has already started in India, according to multiple experts.

Activists and authorities from India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu all the way to western Maharashtra warned that there are far more early marriages taking place now than before, likely because of financial difficulties families are experiencing.

Maharashtra’s city Beed, and Tamil Nadu’s cities Vellore, Tiruvannamalai, Thandrampat, Kalasapakkam, Arni, and Chengam are those that have witnessed the largest number of child marriages in lockdown.

India is one of the countries with the highest rate of child marriages in the world, alongside countries like Niger, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Brazil, and Nigeria, according to UNICEF.

Prior to lockdown, the majority of child marriages were centered around public celebrations, mostly during national and religious holidays. However, struggling with the consequences brought on by lockdown, families have resorted to selling their young girls in exchange for forgoing payments.

Thameem Unisa, a social officer in Tamil Nadu, said that two districts in the state saw 27 child marriages in June as opposed to 5 in March. Unisa and her team were able to prevent 50 marriages in the same month, however more than 20 still went through. They fear that there were many, many more child marriages that went underreported.

Experts like Unisa worry that all the progress in education and awareness surrounding child marriages is not only being halted, but it is actually going backwards. Despite a 20% decrease in marriages between 2008 and 2018, children, especially in rural India, are becoming more and more vulnerable to the situation.

According to UNICEF, 223 million women and girls in India have been married off as children, half of which were married before turning 15. Campaigners have said that these early marriages make girls more likely to drop out of school, and exposes them to the possibility of slavery, trafficking, domestic and sexual violence, and death in childbirth.

Children — especially girls — are becoming harder and harder to reach with schools closed and weddings taking place in obscure conditions. Officials are also considering trafficking as both a source and consequence of child marriages all over India.

Childline, a free emergency helpline for children funded by the government, is said to have stopped around 2,500 child marriages between March and May, an astonishing number regardless of comparison to other years.

India’s child protection commission has also asked state governments to be hyper-vigilant to the threat, and is trying to reiterate the importance of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, which fines Indian parents caught trying to marry off underage children 100,000 Indian rupees (1,535 USD) and gives them two years in prison.

Numerous internal migrant workers who lost their jobs and were forced to pay their way back home have been rendered penniless with families to provide for. Experts worry that this may drive parents to capitalize on cheap weddings in order to traffic girls for sex and labor.

“Conflict at homes has gone up, daughters are not getting any attention, and schools and colleges are closed. [Girls] do not know right from wrong and are willing to leave on the promise of marriage. We fear a rise in trafficking.”

Rolee Singh of the Dr. Shambunath Singh Research Foundation

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