In discussing children's and women's rights, it's difficult not to recognise that they aren't isolated principles but rather interwoven components within a larger and interconnected framework. Child and women exploitation mostly operate as a bouquet of rights infringements rather than a single and isolated issue. This blend of exploitation begins early, often from childhood, and continues into adulthood. Their effects continue to ripple across generations. Poverty and lack of access aside, gender discrimination and restrictive societal norms play equally crucial roles in driving these cycles, leaving communities entrenched in a spiral of marginalisation.
Poverty exacerbates child marriages and dowry practices. In impoverished communities, girls tend to be married off at an early age to alleviate financial burdens from the reeling families. Child marriage is both a symptom and a cause of continued poverty. Once married, a young girl is unlikely to receive further education or vocational training. This further limits her capacity to contribute economically to households where only one earning member, mostly the husband, supports the entire family. As a result, the economic pressures are significant and increase as the family grows.
Moreover, this single-earning structure is precarious. If any misfortune, such as an illness, disability, or job loss, befalls the breadwinner, the family's financial stability crumbles. Women are predominantly relegated to domestic roles, which makes it challenging for them to step into the workforce without skills, education, or experience. This makes them and, by extension, their families more vulnerable to destitution. Consequently, women end up being seen as "economic burdens," and reinforcing a vicious cycle where they are married off before attaining majority, only to continue a life marked by dependence and poverty.
An Unbreakable Cycle Of Gender Discrimination And Child Marriages
Child marriages also have unbearable consequences for women's physical and mental well-being. A young girl forced into child marriage is thrust into responsibilities of adulthood prematurely, often without being adequately prepared to shoulder them. Further, with restricted access to education, her ability to assert autonomy, make informed decisions, and participate in society is greatly curtailed under the additional responsibilities that she is now expected to bear. This lack of personal agency continues a cycle of subjugation and solidifies her "inferior" status within the family and society at large. Deprived of education and isolated from opportunities for self-exploration, a married girl child then grows into adulthood with limited life skills and resources.
Likewise, the demand for dowry is another driving factor for child marriage. Families, hoping to reduce their economic burden, may marry off girls early after securing a dowry to be given to the prospective groom. The notion that daughters are liabilities and objects of economic exchange rather than individuals with rights and potential finds fertile ground to flourish. In turn, this devaluation of girls drives parents to marry them off early, creating a vicious cycle that is difficult to break.
Intergenerational Cycles Of Exploitation And Poverty
When a child is married off, the consequences are not limited to the immediate family. They permeate subsequent generations as we discussed. A woman who is married off as a child is more likely not to have the education and agency needed to advocate for her children's rights or prevent similar exploitation of them. In these situations, her children are also likely to experience poverty, limited educational opportunities, and child marriages. A daughter born to a mother who was married young may face the same fate, thus deepening the repeated effects of limited opportunities that are inherited across generations. For girls, in particular, this restricted access to resources leads to a decreased likelihood of escaping the poverty trap. At the same time, it makes child marriage a natural and viable outcome for families seeking financial relief.
How Societal Norms Perpetuate Exploitation
Societal expectations further compound this intergenerational cycle of exploitation. Women are expected to conform to specific roles and are judged based on their ability to uphold certain prevalent traditional values of society. The pressure to fit within these societal constructs creates a powerful deterrence to breaking the mould later. Parents fear social ostracism. From this stems their likelihood to uphold harmful practices like child marriage and dowry, despite knowing the damaging effects on children's lives. Social norms thus serve as a silent enabler of these cycles. In the process, efforts aimed at reformation become more challenging.
Even more, women's lack of agency in decision-making within the family restricts them from influencing matters of education, healthcare, and childbearing. Women in traditional communities are often confined to their homes and find it difficult to impart knowledge about personal agency, self-worth, and gender equality to their children. The consequence is that exploitation becomes normalised and accepted.
The Need For Holistic Intervention
Breaking this cycle requires systemic and multidimensional interventions that address the root causes of child and women exploitation. Tackling poverty through educational programs and welfare schemes for vulnerable families at risk is vital. Educating girls can empower them with the tools and confidence to make informed decisions and advocate for their rights.
This approach was also recognised in the Supreme Court's landmark judgment dated October 18, 2024, in Society for Enlightenment and Voluntary Action & Anr. v. Union of India & Ors., delivered in a petition filed by Just Rights for Children partner Society for Enlightenment and Voluntary Action (SEVA). The Court mandated a prevention, protection and prosecution framework for implementing child marriage laws. Importantly, the judgment also called for better and decisive investments in education, capacity building, monitoring mechanisms, and child marriage-free villages. At the same time, it recommended that the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act be amended to make the betrothal of children itself illegal.
The fight against child marriage demands more than acknowledgement and symbolic awareness campaigns. It demands active participation, collective determination and deterrence, which is visible at every level of society. Child marriage can only see its end when the ecosystem that sustains it is dismantled, when laws are enforced without exception, and when it is no longer seen as a social custom, but a crime against children, particularly as child rape.
(About the Auhtor: Jyoti Mathur is the Executive Director at the BM Fintech.)
