Bhubaneswar: The two-day long first Regional Conference on Child Marriage organised by National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) at the state guest house here concluded Friday.
Women and Child Development officers and representatives of NGOs from Assam, Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa took part in the conference. NHRC is going to have three more such regional conferences involving other states before holding a national conference.
Among the participating states, Bihar and West Bengal are among the seven states with highest incidences of child marriage. West Bengal has the highest number of child marriages. In case of Orissa according to NFHS IV (2015-16) status, Malkangiri leads the chart with 39.3 per cent of its women aged 20-24 years married before 18 years of age as against the state average of 21.3 per cent. Similarly, Rayagada has the highest percentage of men aged between 25 and 29 years married before attending 21 years which is 25.1 per cent.
Taking child marriage into consideration, the districts have been divided into three categories, high, medium and low. Eight districts such as Malkangiri, Mayurbhanj, Koraput, Nabarangpur, Rayagada, Nayagarh, Ganjam and Keonjhar have the dubious distinction of coming under category ‘high’. Similarly, Balasore, Dhenkanal, Gajapati, Baudh, Deogarh, Subarnapur, Kandhamal, Anugul and Kalahandi are coming under ‘medium’ category for having more than the state average. Nuapada, Khurda, Cuttack, Sundargarh, Bolangir, Bargarh, Kendrapara, Jharsuguda, Sambalpur, Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur, Puri and Bhadrak are coming under the category of ‘low’ for being less than state average.
PNN
