Email
Print
ShareChild marriages or early marriages are confined to India's remote and rural pockets. Right? Wrong, says the human development report, released last week by Mumbai's municipal corporation. It says that girls continue to be married off at tender ages in Mumbai.
"Despite the high levels of urbanisation, early marriages seem to be the trend (in Mumbai)," states the report, which has been compiled by the All India Institute of Local Self Government (AIILSG) in association with the United Nations Development Programme. "This paradox is a cause for concern," remarks the report.
A serious consequence of this trend is that many girls become mothers even before they achieve minimum levels of physical and mental maturity. The report cites statistics of the corporation's public health department to say that some 5,260 teenagers in the age group of 15-19 had at least one live birth in civic hospitals in 2006.
"Worse still, at least 442 (10%) among these, had already delivered twice," the report points out. The trend is seen in the age group of 20-24 as well, where 72,363 girls had babies in 2006. In fact, 36% of these had delivered twice, while 5% were already mothers of three.
The implication of this harmful practice is evident from the high number of deaths of mothers and infants. In 2007, as many as 244 pregnant women died per 1,000 live births. In 2006, over 5,200 still births were recorded, 44 % of these from mothers aged less than 24.
