General Child marriage situation pre-covid, why increased during covid, causes, reflection from selected communities. Many socio-economic evils deprives numerous children from their right to healthy and safe nurturing environment. One such evil is the child marriage practised from age old days and yet not eradicated. UNICEF defines child marriage or early marriage as the union of a girl or boy under the age of 18 years which encompasses both official weddings and informal cohabitations in which children under the age of 18 live as if they were married. According to UNICEF, 110 million child marriages occurred from 2011 to 2021 worldwide and 25 million were averted during the same time frame (UNICEF, 2021b). In spite of being a pioneer in the battle against child marriage, India still has 15.6 million women between the ages of 20 and 24 who were married before they turned 18. There are 223 million child brides in India, with 102 million of them marrying before the age of 15. In terms of the prevalence of child marriage, these data rank India fourth in South Asia (UNICEF, 2019).
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