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Exigencies of war keep child-bride custom alive in the east
View(s):By Chrishanthi Christopher
In Sri Lanka, 20,870 girls between the age of 12-17 years are married or are in cohabiting relationships, many of them in the East as a disturbing hangover of the long civil war. Fifteen million children around the world marry before the age of 18, UNICEF also said; of these, 2 per cent are wed before they reach 15 years. The UN marked International Year of the Girl Child was marked on October 11, with the focus this year being on child marriages.
While Sri Lanka’s policy of free education and the rooting out of child labour has gone a long way to prevent child marriage, the formerly war-torn areas in the north and east are still affected by the problem. Child marriage is practised in many areas of the Eastern Province as a carryover of the culture of the 30-year civil war, with Batticaloa being worst affected.
Batticaloa has around 29,000 widows, more than half of whom were married when they were children, Batticaloa District Secretary P.S.M. Charles said.
Parents in marginalised areas of the province used to marry off their children to avoid the LTTE and other rebel forces conscripting them.
It was difficult for girls to gain even a primary education because of the lack of transport and safety issues that made it dangerous for girls to travel alone. The families were unable to protect their young females during the war: they were afraid to leave them behind in their homes while the adults went in search of livelihood.
Most of the girls had given up going to school and the only option available to them was marriage, which gave them social status and recognition. Traumatised parents could not find alternative ways of protecting their children.
The legal marriageable age under the General Marriage Ordinance is 18 years but these children were married through ceremonies performed in Hindu temples and places of worship. Also, during the conflict, rape was used as a weapon of war and sexual abuse was rampant; teenage pregnancies became the norm with shot-gun weddings taking place to preserve family honour.
These habits have become a way of life in Batticaloa. Divisional Secretariat, statistics show the trend continues with the number of teenage pregnancies hitting 365 last year. Most of the young mothers had been married early or were in co-habitation.
Mrs. Charles said that even seven years after the end of the war, the Batticoloa people were entrenched in their newly acquired custom and did not want to change. They refused to recognise the law and continued a custom that rob a girl-child of human rights, education, reproductive health and the right to choose a husband.
Dr. Savithiri Gunasekera, who has carried out extensive research on the issue, said that this is an “emerging problem” but explained that, in the main, Sri Lanka has successfully weeded out child marriage and that in both urban and rural areas the general age of marriage for women was 25-26 years.
She said the war in the north and east had disrupted girls’ education and rampant teenage pregnancies were pushing children into marriage early.
She called for the legalisation of all underage marriages by registering them under the General Marriage Ordinance and also for the legalisation of children born in co-habiting unions. “The law has to change to make the children legitimate,” she said.