From girl to wife

What is expected of them  

It was a rainy day - like most of them during the monsoon season in India - we were in Bhandup, a suburb of the city of Bombay, green was predominant, the roads were dirt tracks, the landscape was an unreconstructed abandoned building, black and blue plastic sheeting peeking out from the roofs of the houses, in some cases they were also made of cardboard or thin metal sheets. These so-called housing structures were built on irregular and marginal land without adequate access to basic services such as drinking water, electricity or sanitation. It is striking to see how this slum and the famous Antilia Tower, one of the most expensive houses in the world, coexist in Bombay. 

Prafullata Vengurlekar, a social worker with the NGO Bombay Smiles, warns the girls, who are more like teenagers, that she is about to start an awareness-raising session on child marriage in this area. Each of them, hearing her voice, stopped doing their chores, which included helping their mother clean the house, washing clothes, hanging them out or picking them up, and cooking. While the children played in the street. 

The classroom where the session took place was not a traditional room with four walls, desks and chairs. It was a classroom on wheels: the “Smiling Bus”, a project that teaches life skills to children from homeless and disadvantaged families by travelling to the areas of Mumbai where these families live and survive.

During the session, each of the girls raised their hand to share their views on child marriage. For many, marriage represented an escape from home, from the constant fighting and poverty that surrounded them, in search of a better life.  At the same time, they were aware that the promises of their future husbands would vanish if, in less than a year, they became pregnant and took on the responsibility of caring for the man's family. It is difficult to draw conclusions when such fundamental issues as reproductive health remain taboo in schools.

At the end of the session, the social worker asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up. Many of them said they wanted to be singers or dancers, like all of us at their age. But Laxmi, one of the girls, told me that when she grew up she wanted to end gender discrimination, fight for the rights of her community and do something to make all adolescent girls understand the consequences of child marriage.

Flying for a living

Udaan in Hindi means 'flight', referring to the act of flying in a general sense or a specific flight, such as a flight in an aeroplane. Udaan is also the name of the foster home where Baby, a 22-year-old who managed to avoid being married off by her mother and stepfather at the age of 16, now lives.

She was coming home from work, an ordinary day for her, when she opened the door to her house and saw a 28-year-old man she didn't even know, with her mother and stepfather sitting on the sofa in front of him. His stepfather, a person who had abused Baby and continues to abuse her mother, told her that she was going to marry the man in a week's time. It was then that Baby realised that this was not just another day and that her life was about to change, her dreams were about to be shattered, especially the dream of going to university. 

She felt a hand gripping her arm, holding her down. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, her body was covered in marks. The words her stepfather had whispered to her before he left the cellar, after he had beaten her with all his fury, echoed in her mind: 'You will be my next victim and I will be your client.

Baby's mother married when she was 7 and she was born at 13. Tears stream down her face as she recalls her childhood. In her family, as in most families, girls were not wanted, they were seen as a responsibility without great economic prospects. Every morning Baby, only 5 years old, would wake up and go begging with her little sisters in her arms.

There was no room in Baby's mind for the idea of marriage; her hope was Prafullata Vengurlekar, a social worker with the NGO Bombay Smiles. Baby had been with the NGO for a few years, having arrived with her mother and sisters in search of help. Thanks to the work of the social worker and the Bombay Smiles team, they were able to prevent the marriage, which was clearly illegal. If the parents objected to the decision, the NGO could take legal action.

"Telling my story is the therapy I never had," Baby whispers, with the calm of someone who has made peace with her past. "I have so often dreamed of being a beacon for other girls who, like me, were trapped by what their families wanted for them," she adds with a twinkle in her eye. "I always wanted to be like Prafullata and help." Her conviction that she will go far is as clear as the dawn that awaits her.

I look at Baby and see that she wears her college ID card from the Faculty of Social Work called Nirmala Niketan of the University of Bombay around her neck. She is clutching the hand of Prafullata Vengurlekar, whom she calls her angel. But not all stories end like Baby's.

When poverty determines the future

From the window of my car I observe a landscape dominated by green, but it was a different green, an intense green, a green created by rain. Journalist Utpal Pathak tries to open the car window, but fails, and stares through it, pointing with his index finger. "Do you see how this country is changing? Not long ago we were in Varanasi, the city through which the divine Ganges flows, the city to understand India, the city considered the centre of culture, education, health, literature and art, and now, just 15 kilometres away, a rural area where they don't know how to access the basic resources to live."

It was a green that was far from the city of Bombay and Varanasi, it was a green that warned me that I was in Lakhapur, a rural village near the city of Varanasi, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, where there are more child marriages, because it is also the most populated state in India.                                                                               It was also a green area that allowed rice to be grown. Under the blazing sun, the women were seen as part of the landscape, picking rice from the plantations.

“The untouchables”

Lakhapur, a rural village, is home to about twenty-eight families belonging to the Musahar community. The name comes from the word 'mouse' and Musahar means 'those who killed the mice' (twenty years ago they had to eat them to survive). They are also Dalits, known as “untouchables”, the lowest rung of the caste system that still dominates Indian society despite being officially banned. They are born into a life of marginalisation, exclusion and human rights abuses, including child marriage.

From a distance you could see the colours of the women's saris, there were children running around, others in their mother's arms as she prepared food, the men sat in a circle on the floor, they seemed to be talking about important matters, dogs roamed the village, the heat was penetrating, it was an inhospitable place where structures made of bricks - and other waste materials such as plastic, used cloth and sticks to hold the structure together - with small holes to let in the light, looked as if they were about to fall down. These were the houses, some of them built by the government, and the toilets, made of brick walls, incomplete and battered, with a broken and rickety metal door that is dangerous and forces people, especially women, to walk across the village to relieve themselves. In the centre of the village, all the inhabitants gather around an old hand pump, which is the only access to water. Life expectancy in Lakhapur is 55 years, and one of the causes is child marriage, because of all the changes it causes in the body.

I felt the electrifying gazes of everyone; I was a stranger to them. I felt I was intruding into their lives, their way of living and their way of seeing things, but it was inevitable that I was the privileged westerner coming to the village. Urmila, one of the women I met later, stared at me. At one point she spoke loudly, and although I didn't understand the language, I thought she was uncomfortable with my presence. She was pointing at something: the toilets I mentioned earlier. With gestures she explained that these four walls, barely standing, were what the government had offered them.

First menstruation

Being a Dalit woman means working all day long until going to bed in order to get the daily resources. From childhood, they are destined to marry, take care of the house and the children. With no education, no freedom, most of them are abused by their husbands —the rate of gender violence in the village is very high— and dependent on him. But when he is not working, the whole family burden falls on them.

Their first menstruation marks the age of marriage. 

Sangita, 13, married Sonu, a 16-year-old boy, in July. They did not know each other before the wedding, and she came from a village about 15 kilometres from Lakhapur. Her life was based on preparing food and doing household chores for her husband's family. When her in-laws thought she was ready, she would go to work in the fields and farms. She had no recollection of the few years she spent at school. I was married by my parents' will, it was for them,' she whispered matter-of-factly. All my friends are married. It was a path she could not choose.

Once married, she can wear saris, jewellery, make-up... (before marriage, girls are not allowed to wear any kind of adornment). But now she also has to cover her hair, she cannot play with her children as she used to, and she has to work at home. In less than a year, Sangita will be pregnant.

In most rural villages in India, child marriage affects boys as well as girls. Often denied access to education, they are also forced to marry before the age of 18, trapped in a tradition that denies them the opportunity to choose their own path. Both are deprived of their fundamental rights, perpetuating the gender inequalities and socio-economic constraints that define their lives.

Rinka is a 19-year-old girl, married at 16 and pregnant with her third child. She showed me her house where her husband Govinda, who could not have been more than 20 years old, was making a fire for her to cook later.

Amravati was with me all the time I was with them; we understood each other even though we did not speak the same language. She was a woman in her 40s, married at 15, wearing a blue sari with purple, red, green and gold detailing. She always ended with a smile. "Do you think our life is different?" she asked me, but I didn't have time to answer. "It is, no doubt, and it is also extremely hard. In this forgotten and abandoned land we are strong. Very strong, because we have no choice." Urmila, her friend, was hanging out clothes. She was the same woman who had shown me these ruined baths when I first arrived. With a deep need to raise her voice, she said she had been married at the age of 12. She was now 45 and had three children. Naagena was visiting her family that day, married at 15 in another village. I followed a boy who was playing and he took me to his mother, Sheela, who is my age, 22, married at 15 and has two children.

On the same day, a marriage was celebrated in the village. A typical Hindu marriage ritual could be seen in front of the groom's house. In the evening, the ceremony began, a procession to the girl's village to take her to Lakhapur, where the husband lives, to consummate the marriage. The girl would probably be between 14 and 15 years old.  Meanwhile, Arti, Punam and Rekha, 17 years old and married at 14, danced in front of the ritual. The colours of their saris - red, yellow and orange - were as vibrant as the music. Two children played disc jockey behind a large loudspeaker connected by wires, contrasting with the brick wall of the groom's house, and the whole village, in a circle, enjoyed the spectacle, which seemed like an everyday scene.

For them, child marriage is just another way of surviving. They spend part of their lives migrating in search of a place to work and live. For them, child marriage means having an extra worker, a companion to support the family system, a way to control panic in a society dominated by insecurity. Paradoxically, some parents see child marriage as a way of protecting their daughters because of the stigma attached to female sexuality. They see it as a social prerogative for their daughters.

Criminalisation without education

In many cases, they are not even aware that child marriage is prohibited by law. They have no access to education, so they see only one way to live, or rather to survive, without any choice.

Given the vastness of a densely populated universe like India, the police cannot cover everything. But when it comes to rural communities, they often don't even bother to try. And in these forgotten corners, no one reports anything, many are unaware and believe that this is the way they have to live. In the end, the law only punishes, it does not educate, and the community prefers to protect itself in its own silence.

Madhu Mehra argues that the current law does not play a significant role in preventing child marriage, but only penalises, criminalises and punishes, instead of proposing development initiatives, educating the population, especially in marginalised communities, where we have seen it most prevalent. It is difficult to believe that there is any political commitment on the part of the government to change the situation.

Shruti Nagvanshi, a leading Indian women's and children's rights activist and advocate for marginalised groups in the country, says that a multi-sectoral approach is needed to really tackle child marriage, and that only education and access to education can eradicate it. Nagvanshi runs the NGO Jan Mitra Nyas, which aims to provide direct support to marginalised and excluded communities. According to the activist, the Musahar community has at least 15 years to oppose child marriage.

But how can they think about child marriage when they are struggling every day to survive in the midst of scarcity and poverty?

India

To see India as a whole is not to open one's eyes, it is to fail to understand its true complexity. This country, the most populous in the world with 1,441 million inhabitants, is home to more than 30 languages and 2,000 dialects, with 22 official languages recognised in the constitution. Every kilometre of this continent, which is more than a country, reveals profound contrasts: privileges and inequalities, different ways of life, thoughts and dreams. To be born in the North is not the same as being born in the South, to be born in a rural village is very different from being born in a city where child marriage is increasingly rare. Being born in Lakhapur is not the same as being born in Bombay or Varanasi. 

In just six hours by car, it is amazing how much this country is changing. From a distance you can see the great dome and a structure intricately carved from white ivory and inlaid with precious stones - it is the Taj Mahal. It is then that I realise I am in India, a country of contrasts.                                                                          This is what makes it an incredible country, but at the same time a very unjust one, a country where many girls are also wives.