Prepare IAS Coaching
Current Affairs
Title : MINIMUM AGE AT MARRIAGE OF GIRLS
Date : Dec 20, 2021
Description :
GS – II
Topic à Government Policies & Interventions
- Background:
- The Union. Cabinet has accepted the proposal to increase the minimum age at marriage for girls from 18 years to 21 years.
- This idea was adopted a year after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced it during his Independence Day speech in August 2020.
- The current marriage age:
- Men must be 21 years old to marry, while women must be 18 years old.
- Task Force Details:
- In June 2020, the Task Force, led by Jaya Jaitley, was established.
- It was established by the Ministry of Women and Child Development to re-examine the appropriate age for females to marry.
- It will submit a report in December 2020. It was advised that women be 21 years old at the time of their first child's birth.
- The task panel recommended raising the age of marriage for girls from 18 to 21 years.
- The marriage age was also linked to health and social indices such as maternal mortality, infant mortality, and nutrition levels in mothers and children, according to the proposal.
- What laws are going to be changed now:
- After this plan is approved, the government would change the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, the Hindu Marriage Act, and the Special Marriage Act to give the new proposal shape.
- The Move's Importance:
- Women, children, households, and society will benefit economically, socially, and in terms of health if marriage is postponed. It will help prevent ladies from becoming malnourished.
- What are the opinions of experts:
- Increasing the age of marriage, according to experts, will not work.
- Because of the following reasons:
- The law aimed at preventing child marriages is ineffective. In 1978, the age of marriage was raised to 18 years old. Child marriage, on the other hand, began to diminish in the 1990s, when the government began emphasising elementary education for girls and took steps to alleviate poverty.
- Marriages will become more criminalised as a result of the new law.
- Source à The Hindu à 17/12/21 à Page Number 8