Bangalore: Success Story - Sixty-four Married Girls Back in School
Shruthi Balakrishna/DHNS
Bangalore, Jan 19: Sixty-four girl students, all below 14 years of age, but each one of them married!
This is the startling story from Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBVs), a multi-school education project launched across Karnataka under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) project. Child marriage was apparently the last thing the State government expected when it commenced the project with a glorious objective of providing education to out-of-school girl students.
According to project sources, 64 out of 5,600 girls enrolled in the KGBV schools are “married.”
The girls had all dropped out of schools before they joined KGBVs and 27 of them were from Bagalkot district, 13 from Koppal, nine from Gulbarga, four from Raichur, three each from Dharwad and Belgaum, two each from Bidar and Gadag and one from Bellary.
For the record, KGBVs are elementary-level residential schools set up for girls particularly from the SC, ST, OBC and minority groups. Girls are identified through house-to-house census data circulated to all schools. Based on their competency, the girls are enrolled for Class 6, 7 or 8.
As an Education Department special officer in Jamakhandi put it, the girls’ marital status is known at the admission stage. “In most cases parents accompany the children during admission and they inform us that their daughters are married,” the officer said.
In other cases, the Department gets the information from other children.
Instruction
Parents and in-laws are clearly instructed not to disturb the children with any family issues till the course is completed. “We stress more on education and do not discuss anything about the marital status. It might affect their education. These girls are too young to handle any family issues,” the officer explained.
To boost awareness on girls’ education, child labour and even child marriage, the SSA had tied up with the Srushti Performing Arts and Communication. Street plays, dance and performing arts are the preferred tools.
Srushti Founder Director, Lakshmi Hariharan said that child marriage cases were mainly found in Raichur, Koppal and Bagalkot districts.
“During interactions, some of the children did not complain about being married. A few others said even if they had protested against the early marriage, no one would have listened,” she said.
In one instance, she recalled, a 15-year-old girl had even refused to go back to her husband after studies. One of the reasons for the early marriage is financial. As the officials explained, some parents often club the marriage of an older child (boy or girl) with that of the younger sibling to save cost.
KGBV students hail from economically backward classes. Their parents either work as labourers or farmers. In some cases, girls as young as 6 months are married off, in what is called the Thottilu Maduve (cradle marriage).
SSA project director Vandita Sharma said child marriages are illegal and inhuman. Its like taking away her childhood, Sharma added.