Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: Police in India’s state of Assam arrested hundreds of people on Friday in a crackdown on those involved in child marriages.
The minimum age to marry is 18 for females and 21 for males in the South Asian country. India’s latest National Family Health Survey stated that 31.8% of women in the state were married before the legal age, compared with the national average of 23.3%. In some areas of Assam, more than half of married females were married before 18.
Child Marriages in India
The crackdown on child marriage was approved by the Government of Assam last month to tackle the practice. Assam’s inspector general of police Prasanta Kumar Bhuiyan said they had captured 1,793 people by 8 a.m. this morning.
He added that the crackdown would continue for one week, and hundreds of people are being captured as per the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act. He added that another 6,000 alleged accused would be arrested in the upcoming days.
Chief Minister of Assam Himanta Biswa Sarma said that he had asked the police to act with zero tolerance against the heinous crime against women.
The United Nations (UN) estimates that India is home to about 223 million child brides — the largest number of any country worldwide.
