CHILD BRIDES

BY ASHA KRISHNAKUMAR, T.K. RAJALAKSHMI

Shakuntala Verma, the official, went to Bhangarh village in Dhar district on May 112007 after a tip-off that a family there was planning to marry off its young daughters. As instructed by the Sub Divisional Magistrate she asked for proof of the girls' ages, but was forced to leave after members of the family threatened her. Later that evening a person armed with a sword came to her house and began slashing at her. As she tried to protect herself, one hand was severed and the other severely cut. Even as Shakuntala was fighting for her life in an Indore hospital after a nine-hour operation to re-attach her hand, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Babulal Gaur announced that "no serious action" would be taken against those who conduct child marriages. "Social customs are stronger than laws," he said

Anupam Srivastava and Jyoti Rao Source - http://www.unicef.org/india/child_protection_1536.htm

DATE: THE PRESENT. PLACE: SOMEWHERE IN RURAL INDIA:

As Shanti emerges out of her mud-plastered hut, her child-like form looks quite odd wrapped in a sari - an adult garment. She moves about listlessly, trying to hide her protruding belly with the drape of her oversized sari. Married at 13, Shanti got pregnant immediately afterwards and subsequently lost her underweight, prematurely delivered baby. She is pregnant again. “This time, we hope she pulls it off,” says her mother-in-law.

by Subash Mohapatra - Source -http://www.asiawatch.org

"I want to go to bed," she cried. "Please, mum, dad. Let me sleep!" Geeta (all names have been changed to protect the victims) was married at the age of 10 and widowed at the age of 14. Her husband, whom she barely knew, had died while working as a migrant worker having to repay a loan to his father. This loan was for the child’s marriage expenses. Now, as a widow, Geeta has been shunned by all members of her family and is considered unlucky and useless by all of society.

Rita was married off by her family at age 12, became a mother at age 14, and was divorced at age 16. Although hardly cognizant of her first marriage, Rita is considered undesirable and will most likely remain alone and unmarried, having to raise her child completely on her own.

Chetram, a 56-year-old man residing in a rural village of the Surguja district of Chhattisgarh, has boasted of marrying six girls to date, all between the ages of eight and 16 years when he was 10, 14, 17, 23, 25, and finally 47 years old. Chetram was not the only villager in the district of Surguja to have married young girls multiple times. The author interviewed 10 other men whose ages ranged between 40 and 50 years old, all of whom had been married at least four times.

[Source: The Telegraph India: http://www.telegraphindia.com]

A man in his mid-40s has been arrested in Calcutta on charges of abetting the suicide of his second wife, a minor aged 15. Police said Jyoti, a school dropout, consumed poison at her in-laws’ house in Chitpur on Friday night. “The complaint says that Jyoti was beaten up for the past two weeks. They hardly gave her anything to eat and locked her in a room,” the officer said. “On Friday night, Jyoti could lay her hands on a packet of pesticide and consumed it.”

CHILD SOLDIERS

 “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children… This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”

— Former U.S. President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a speech on April 16, 1953

Susan, sixteen years of age, captures the brutalization children suffer at the hands of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda in the following testimony:

"One boy tried to escape but he was caught. His hands were tied and then they made us, the other new captives, kill him with a stick. I felt sick. I knew this boy from before; we were from the same village. I refused to do it and they told me they would shoot me. They pointed a gun at me, so I had to do it… I see him in my dreams and he is saying I killed him for nothing, and I am crying."

Source, www.Irin.org

Africa
Central Africa

"I feel so bad about the things that I did. It disturbs me so much that I inflicted death on other people. When I go home I must do some traditional rites because I have killed. I must perform these rites and cleanse myself. I still dream about the boy from my village that I killed. I see him in my dreams, and he is talking to me, saying I killed him for nothing, and I am crying." A 15-year-old girl after demobilization from an armed group (Source: U.S. State Dept. )

Democratic Republic of the Congo

"When they came to my village, they asked my older brother whether he was ready to join the militia. He was just 17 and he said no; they shot him in the head. Then they asked me if I was ready to sign, so what could I do - I didn't want to die." A former child soldier taken when he was 13. (BBC report.)

"They gave me a uniform and told me that now I was in the army. They even gave me a new name: 'Pisco' They said that they would come back and kill my parents if I didn't do as they said." Report of interview with a 17 year old former child soldier.

Sudan

"I joined the SPLA when I was 13. I am from Bahr Al Ghazal . They demobilized me in 2001 and took me to Rumbek, but I was given no demobilization documents. Now, I am stuck here because my family was killed in a government attack and because the SPLA would re-recruit me. At times I wonder why I am not going back to SPLA, half of my friends have and they seem to be better off than me." Boy interviewed by Coalition staff, southern Sudan.

Uganda

"Early on when my brothers and I were captured, the LRA [Lord's Resistance Army] explained to us that all five brothers couldn’t serve in the LRA because we would not perform well. So they tied up my two younger brothers and invited us to watch. Then they beat them with sticks until two of them died. They told us it would give us strength to fight. My youngest brother was nine years old." Former child soldier, aged 13.

Zimbabwe

"There was no one in charge of the dormitories and on a nightly basis we were raped. The men and youths would come into our dormitory in the dark, and they would just rape us - you would just have a man on top of you, and you could not even see who it was. If we cried afterwards, we were beaten with hosepipes. We were so scared that we did not report the rapes The youngest girl in our group was aged 11 and she was raped repeatedly in the base." 19-year-old girl describing her experience in the National Youth Service Training Program.

India

"He had to run away to a forest with his friend to join the underground. He was 14 when he first held a gun in his hands. He said he loves to go to school but for the poverty of his family he has to lift a gun. Now he is earning enough money with the help of the gun for himself and send money for his family also." Report of interview with 16-year-old boy, northeast India,.

Myanmar (Burma)

 “They filled the forms and asked my age, and when I said 16, I was slapped and he said, ‘You are 18. Answer 18’ He asked me again and I said, ‘But that’s my true age’. The sergeant asked, ‘Then why did you enlist in the army?” I said, ‘Against my will. I was captured.’ He said, ‘Okay, keep your mouth shut then,’ and he filled in the form. I just wanted to go back home and I told them, but they refused. I said, ‘Then please just let me make one phone call’ but they refused that too.” Maung Zaw Oo, describing the second time he was forced into the Tatmadaw Kyi (army).

SOURCE – www.childsoldiers.org - 2009