KSCF’s Awareness Drive On Government Schemes Saves Girl From Child Marriage

Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foundation

Barod is one of the backward villages in Ganj Basoda, Madhya Pradesh. Scheduled Castes and Tribal communities are the main residents of this village.

As part of the community rapport building and awareness generation session, KSCF activists informed the communities about child labour, child marriage, and its effects on children’s development. The team shared government welfare programmes for education, housing, marriage, health etc. for eligible families.

Since child marriages are a common practice in this village, our team laid emphasis on Mukhya Mantri Kanya Yojana which provides Rs 51,000 as marriage assistance to the families of adult brides.

Ms Ganga Bai, one of the participants approached the BMG team and inquired about the process to access the scheme for her daughter’s marriage. She sought the team’s support to apply for the scheme. The team collected documents from Ganga Bai to apply for the scheme.  An assessment of the documents revealed that the daughter is 17 years old. The team explained to Ganga Bai that her daughter is a minor and marrying her off now is against the law and the scheme is not for minor brides and grooms.

Ganga Bai discussed the matter with her family and together they agreed to postpone the marriage. The whole community got to know about this incident. Other women in the village said that “if we had known about this earlier, we would not have struggled to marry off our daughters early. Now, we hope other families will do the right thing by not arranging a marriage for their minor children.”

A simple awareness programme in this village made a huge impact on the lives of minor girls by saving them from child marriage.