Child Marriage Free India

About AAs

AAs – which in Hindi means Hope, was established in May 2005 to create a child-friendly world for every child. A child-friendly world where children have access to each and every resource to ensure their survival, Development, protection and participation. We believe that Child development and protection could not be achieved by only working with children, but this should be a comprehensive approach to include each and every stakeholder affecting child development.

AAs has adopted its 5Ps model i.e. Protection of every child from any abuse, Prevention by engaging all the direct and indirect stakeholders by conducting sensitization workshops and training programmes for creating child-friendly atmospheres, Peoples Participation to ensure the participation every stakeholder i.e. children, parents, child care institutions, Police and other line departments to ensure their participation for creating child-friendly spaces, Partnership in terms of knowledge and resource partnership with the likeminded organization and Propagate the child rights issues at different forums to influence decision makers to develop child-friendly policies and laws in the country.

AAs always explore partnerships and projects interventions in a way by which we can achieve all of our 5Ps for creating child friendly world. We have not limited ourselves only for financial partnerships with our supporters, but always open our doors for knowledge and resource partnership.

The organization participated and organized Child Marriage  Free India Campaign in Indore, Dewas and Dhar  district of  Madhya Pradesh  150 villages  under the project Access to Justice Project Phase Two with support of Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation 


The Campaign Activities included:

1.Awareness for elimination of child labour, child marriage , child sexual abuse, child trafficking to  Anganwari worker, Mata Samiti, Adolescent group, Community others Male and Female .School teachers and Students,

2. June and November Action Month -   conducted the action month with the objective of Child labour Free Indore and Dewas and,Rescued 60 children from shops and FIRs got registered and children were present before CWC and sent to Home . The campaign was conducted in collaboration with Women and Child Development Department, Police, and child line departments and covered by news paper with an outreach of 10,000  directly and 5000 through online.

3. 16 October 2023 - Child Marriage Free India Campaign Event – The campaign event was conducted in more than 150 village in collaboration with  all line departments (ICPS, Police, Adolescent girl group, community people, school teacher and students , Government officials ) 

Campaign highlights: Candlelight and Torch Fire Rally, Prabhat Ferri  in 150 villages villages, Signature Campaign Gram Panchayat Level to District Level covering all district offices, Poster and Banner release and distribution, Book Release of “When Children have Children.” by diffrent representatives from the goverment department and also book was given to the representative of diffrent government departments.

4.Nukkad Natak and Puppet show  in all the 50 village for awareness to community for elimination of child labour, child marriage , child sexual abuse, child trafficking

5. Identification of child labour and children out of school done for admission in school.

6. Parents UNDERTAKING has take for not to Marry their Girl before 18 years of age and Boys before 21 years of age

7 ALL the Mukhiya and Sarpanch have taken PLEDGE and Signed for making Child Marriage Free Panchayat

8 District ,Block, Panchayat  and Ward level Child Protection Committee (CPC) Formed, and their capacity has been done,

9. Wall writing and hoarding at important place like school, panchayat Bhawan, water tank, temple, masjid for child marriage free INDIA

Campaign Photos:  

Campaign Media Coverage: 

 Background
Child marriage is not just an age-old social evil, but also a heinous crime that robs children of their childhood.  Child marriage is a “crime against children” that violates basic human rights, minor girls are forced to marry and live a life of mental trauma, physical and biological stress, domestic violence including limited access to education and increased vulnerability to domestic violence. The consequences of child marriage are severe and extensive. Some of the specific consequences include: early pregnancies leading to complications and higher rate of maternal mortality and death of infants, malnutrition among both the infant and the mother, increased vulnerability to reproductive health, disruption in girl’s education and thereby reduction in opportunities of her personal and professional development, domestic violence and abuse, limited decision making powers in the household, and mental health issues.

India’s Census 2011 revealed 12 million children were married before attaining the legal age, of which 5.2 million were girls. Globally, child marriage is identified as a crime and a menace that needs to be eliminated. It finds space in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, under target 5.3 of Goal 5 that states elimination of all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation by 2025.

The latest National Family Health Survey (2019-21) shows that although there is a drop in the overall rate of child marriages, from 26.8% in the National Family Health Survey (NFHS 4) to 23.3% in NFHS-5, it is still high despite laws, programmes and schemes in place to address the issue.

Child Marriage Free India Campaign

Understanding the seriousness of the issue, the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in W.P. Civil 382 of 2013 pronounced that the sexual intercourse committed by the husband upon his wife being under the age of 18 years with or without her consent can be constituted as rape. To address this, the most definitive and audacious commitment to end child marriage was made with the launch of Child Marriage Free India campaign.

Child Marriage Free India (CMFI) is a nationwide campaign led by women leaders and a coalition of more than 160 NGOs spanning more than 300 districts working to eliminate child marriage in India. CMFI is working to attain the tipping point of child marriage, after which the society does not accept this evil practice and that will happen when the prevalence of child marriage is brought down to 5.5% by 2030, from the current national prevalence rate of 23.3%. This is being done by initially targeting 257 high-prevalence districts and gradually focusing on all the districts of the country.

Child marriage results in child rape, resulting in child pregnancy, and in a large number of cases, may lead to child deaths. For decades, we have been losing generations of our children to child marriage. The Child Marriage Free India campaign has received extended support from various Departments and Institutions of over 28 States. So far, across India more than 5 crore people have taken the pledge to end child marriage over the last one year through the efforts of the Child Marriage Free India Campaign.

Know more about the Child Marriage Free India (CMFI) Campaign: https://www.childmarriagefreeindia.org/


 The Way Forward: PICKET Strategy to End Child Marriage

Addressing the issue of child marriage, requires a comprehensive and coordinated approach of different government departments, institutions, statutory bodies, and civil society organisations.

Tipping Point to end child marriage

WHEN CHILDREN HAVE CHILDREN - TIPPING POINT TO END CHILD MARRIAGE Book authored by Mr Bhuwan Ribhu is an action plan to eliminate child marriage in India by 2030. It looks at the existing data on child marriage and lists 257 districts in India where the issue of child marriage is worst, which means where the occurrence of this evil practice is highest as compared to national numbers.

Tipping Point is the threshold required in an ecosystem needed to tilt the scale of the problem towards a point of no-return. The Tipping Point of Child Marriage is the critical point after which the society does not accept child marriage.

Tipping Point Methodology

The aim of reduction of 60 percent of child marriage is assumed to bring down the incidence of child marriage to 5.5 percent in the next nine years from 2021, from the last available estimates i.e., NFHS-5, till 2030. An additional assumption is that such a focused and elaborate intervention against child marriage would have a ripple effect.

In order to reach the Tipping Point, the Author proposes strategy at national and district level.