Kekri/Ajmer/Tonk, Rajasthan: Lalita Kumar Mali carefully removed dry leaves from the pit dug around the pear tree in her front yard. Mali, 25, lives with her mother in a newly constructed two-room house in Chosla, a village in the central Rajasthan district of Kekri. 

The walls were freshly painted with a coat of quicklime, or choona. “I built this,” she said. “I have done what my father and brother had said they would but did not.”

Mali said she was trying to prove her worth, not just to society, but to herself as well. “Because it was decided very early in my life that I was a burden.” 

Mali was born in the late 90s, when thousands of people in Rajasthan’s district of Tonk were protesting the construction of the Bisalpur Dam on the river Banas. 

The village of her birth, Chosla in Tonk district (she now lives in a village of the same name in Kekri district), neighbouring Kekri to the east, was to be submerged by the proposed dam. Her grandparents panicked at the thought of losing their family home, the two acres of land they owned and their livelihoods. 

“Although they were promised compensation and some land in the neighbouring district of Ajmer, they were not convinced they could feed all the mouths in the family,” said Mali. 

So Mali and her three sisters were married off together, in a small ceremony, to save costs. All the girls were below the age of 10. Mali was only a year old. 

“They never thought of us as assets,” said Mali, who graduated with a master’s degree in political science three years ago. She is now studying to take her state’s administrative services exam. 

A 2024 report by India Child Protection, part of the Child Marriage Free India campaign, a coalition of over 160 NGOs, found that three girls are forced into marriage in India every minute, yet, only three cases were registered every day in 2022. 

According to the United Nations, India has made significant progress towards preventing child marriage in the last two decades. Child marriage rates reduced from 47.4% in 2005–06 to 26.8% in 2015–16. According to the latest official data, covering the period of 2019-2021, it stands at 23.3%. 

In an effort to bring the numbers further down, the central government introduced the Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill in December 2021, which increased the legal marriageable age for women to 21. Many lawyers, activists and social workers opposed this change on the grounds that it would lead to greater criminalisation of poor and marginalised people like Mali. 

This bill was to override any other law, custom, or practice. Currently, the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act (PCMA), passed in 2007, does not override personal laws such as the Hindu Marriage Act, which does not consider age of marriage as a reason to declare a marriage void. However, the 2021 bill lapsed in June 2024. 

Child marriages are arranged by families either because of poverty, patriarchal notions such as a fear of the girl choosing her own partner or for access to cheap household labour. 

“The poorest parts of the country see the most child marriages,” said Indira Pancholi, a feminist human rights activist. 

The pandemic years saw a reversal of the declining trend. There was a significant increase in reported child marriages in some regions like Haryana, for example. According to a May 2023 United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) report, one in three of the world’s child brides live in India, making it home to the largest number of child brides worldwide. 

The National Family Health Survey 2019-21 (NFHS-5) showed that more than 40% of women aged between 20 and 24 in West Bengal, Bihar and Tripura were married below the age of 18. The next five states with the highest rates of child marriage were Jharkhand, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Telangana.

“Our strategy should not only be to prevent more young people from marrying early, but also to help those who were forced into child marriages get out of it,” said Dr. Vageshwari Deswal, professor at the faculty of law at Delhi University. 

With more and more young Indian women prioritising education, there has been a change in attitudes, even in regions where poverty and patriarchy ensured that there was an entrenched practise of child marriage, according to Yashoda Gujjar, an Ajmer-based sociology graduate.  

Gujjar was married at the age of 10 and has decided to stay in the marriage. “Many young women are rejecting the practice,” she said. “But they are not aware of the steps they can take or have easily available help.” 

Divorce Vs Annulment

The PCMA has provisions which allow the annulment of child marriages if it is found that a minor was “enticed out of the keeping of the lawful guardian”, if the marriage was compelled by force or the child was “by any deceitful means induced to go from any place”, or was “sold for the purpose of marriage”.

It grants the right to nullify a marriage that was solemnised before the legal age for marriage, which is 18 years for girls and 21 years for boys. According to the law, they have two years to do so after reaching adulthood.  The lapsed 2021 bill, crucially, proposed to increase this to five years. 

While a divorce is termination of a legally sanctioned marriage, annulment is a legal ruling that declares the marriage void as it was not legally valid in the first place. This distinction makes it important that we push for annulment, said Karuna Philip, who works with the non-profit Mahila Jan Adhikar Samiti, an NGO, based in Ajmer, that fights for equal rights for women. 

“Society and the law should not give these marriages legal sanction in the first place,” said Philip. “Moreover, the stigma of divorce is very high and young people should be free from it.”

Philip said that an annulment is preferable to a divorce as it gives the girls a right to erase a part of their histories they did not consent to. She added, “That is very empowering. To be able to start your life afresh.” 

However, only a very small percentage of child marriages are nullified. 

“We have managed to get only one annulment in our district over several decades,” said Philip, who has been working in Ajmer for close to three decades. There is no comprehensive data on the number of annulled child marriages nationwide. 

“Most young men and women do not get their marriages annulled because of lack of awareness about the process,” said Kriti Bharti, founder of Sarathi Trust, a Jodhpur-based non-governmental organisation working for the rights of women and children.

In most cases of annulment, the two families are unable to decide how to divide the costs of the marriage or assets, such as land or jewellery, that would have exchanged hands. 

“This is usually the biggest point of disagreement,” said Philip. 

A Landmark Case

The first child marriage annulled under the PCMA was in 2012. Laxmi Sargara, the child bride in that case, only realised that she was married when she turned 18 and her in-laws came to take her away from her parents’ home. She had been only one year old when she was married off to a three-year-old boy. 

Laxmi sought help from the Jodhpur-based Sarathi Trust. “Although I work with victims of child marriage, we didnt know about annulment initially,” said Kriti Bharti, the trust. “We had to pore over hundreds of judgments and legal documents before we found out.” 

Bharti has since helped annul more than 40 child marriages in Jodhpur. But that is only because the judges and lawyers in the lower courts of Jodhpur are now familiar with the precedents. 

Judges and legal practitioners are either unaware of the provisions or are unwilling to implement them, said M*, a lawyer who has fought 52 child marriage cases in a district in south Rajasthan. He asked not to be named as he was talking about the competency of the courts within which he continues to practise. 

Why Many Child Marriages aren’t Annulled

In many parts of the country, when a young child is married, she continues to live at her maternal home until she attains puberty, when she is sent to the marital home. Lalita Kumar Mali stayed on in her paternal home till she turned 18. Her child marriage had taken the pressure off her family, who did not have to bear the costs of a wedding now.

So when Mali turned 18, her in-laws came to take her to their house. It was a strange experience, she recalled. She was made to sit across from her husband for the first time. 

“I instantly knew I didn't want this. I wanted to study more. I wanted to care for my mother,” said Mali. Her sisters went to their in-laws’ homes when they turned 18. 

She told her in-laws that she wanted to file for an annulment. However, just a few days later, her mother fell ill. Mali had to take her to multiple hospitals to seek treatment. 

“That swallowed up a year of my life when I couldn’t do anything much,” said Mali. 

Her brother lived close by but didn't want the responsibility and her father was an alcoholic, who could not be relied on. 

Every time Mali had conversations with her in-laws about annulment, they raised the issue of the ‘bride price’. When Mali was married off, her family had received a sum of money, which the groom’s family wanted returned, with interest. “By the time I could gather the money, I had crossed the deadline to annul my marriage,” she said. 

Khushboo Vaishna, 22, was married off at the age of 14. She was reluctant to talk about her wedding, taking a long pause before she answered. 

“It was traumatic,” she said, finally, “nothing like the celebrations we see in the movies.” 

Sitting in her two-room house in Ram Nagar, in the Kekri district of Rajasthan, she explained that the custom in southern Rajasthan among many agricultural communities is to trade daughters for daughters-in-law. 

This way both families can get a waiver on the bride price. “I was married to my sister-in-law’s brother, so no money exchanged hands,” said Vaishna. But, as a result, her marriage was inextricably linked to her brother’s. 

Within days of going to her husband’s house, at the age of 15, Vaishna realised that her husband was abusive. She felt trapped in the marriage. 

She knew that if she left her husband, her in-laws would want her brother’s wife to be returned as well. “She is stuck in an abusive marriage,” her father said, “and we don’t see a way out.”

“We saw her struggle in her marriage for a few years and then brought her to her parents’ house,” said Shambu Devi Sain, a social worker in Kekri. 

When she turned 18, Vaishna, who now lives with her parents and younger sister, decided to not annul her marriage, because her brother asked her not to. “He told her it would end his marriage too,” said Sain.

In many communities that depend on agriculture in Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, young women are invaluable. They do the brunt of agricultural labour and care for the homes, even in situations where their husbands migrate to bigger cities for work. 

According to the periodic labour force survey 2017-18, 73.2% of rural women workers are engaged in agriculture, across the country. “These families know the value of having a young woman in their homes,” said Sain. “They either want to have their daughters or daughters-in-law at home.”

Even in families where brides have not been traded for one another, many young women are unable to escape their marriages. “They do not have the societal support to come out of such marriages,” said Philip, who has worked on  more than 60 child marriage cases of this nature. 

Women As Chattel

Devi Prajapat, 22, committed the unthinkable crime of falling in love. She was 14-years-old when her father died. A few months later, her mother died too. 

“As a 15-year-old, I inherited a bit more than half an acre of land,” she said, in a whisper. Prajapat did not raise her voice or sit on a chair when a man was nearby. She squatted on the ground with her pallu covering her head.

There were many claimants to Prajapat’s land. Her uncles promised her in marriage to a neighbour’s family in exchange for some of her land.

According to the local customs, a ‘samaaj’, a group of elders, assembles in the village temple or a community hall along with other male members, all of the same caste, in the village. The young woman is promised as a bride to the young man’s family in front of the entire gathering. 

In Prajapat’s case, when her uncles arranged for the ‘samaaj’, she protested saying she wanted to marry the man she was in love with. The ‘samaaj’ ignored her wishes and declared that she was married to the man her uncles chose. 

The Prajapat-caste ‘samaaj’ from the Kacholia village, Tonk district, stamped a sheet of paper containing her and her husband’s aadhaar card details. This was their de facto marriage certificate. 

But Prajapat never went to her marital home, choosing to elope with the man she loved. She is currently living with him and is afraid to disclose her location. Back home, her uncles are fighting with her ‘in-laws’, the parents of her ‘legal’ husband, over her piece of land.

 “My uncles cultivate that land and keep all the produce,” she said. 

When she turned 18, she tried to get her ‘marriage’ annulled. But, her uncles turned up at the courthouse to threaten her. “Only when I give them my land, will they let me be in peace,” Prajapat said. 

“No one files a child marriage case unless one of the parties faces a problem,” said Yashika, who uses only one name, additional principal judge (family court), Faridabad. Such unchallenged marriages would continue to be valid until either of the parties moves the court. 

Even when a case is filed, they often don’t reach a resolution. According to M*, the lawyer quoted previously, most child marriage cases are unresolved because the two parties do not agree on the division of property or other assets. 

He added, “Especially when the “samaaj” is involved the girl’s family gets the short end of the stick.”

“This means that they [society] don’t have a problem with the concept of child marriage even now,” said Deswal, the professor of law quoted earlier. In fact, the website Behan Box reported, in June 2015, that many Tamil Nadu child marriages were solemnised in the presence of MLAs and ministers.

“We are still not seeing young girls for who they are, but are treating them as property or a way to earn some side cash,” Deswal said. 

Mali from Chosla said her ‘in-laws’ would not show interest in her if it were not for her graduate degree and computer skills that would guarantee her a better income than her husband. 

But she is determined to file for a divorce as soon as possible. “I don’t know the man, how can I call him my husband?” she said.

Mali shuffles out to the yard to make tea on the open firewood stove or chulha. “This year, I have to do two things,” she said. “Build a kitchen inside our home and file for a divorce.”

(Raksha Kumar is a journalist focusing on human rights and social justice issues.)

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