Childline effort against minor marriages pays

This apart, the Childline had roped in college students to act as volunteers to create awareness of child rights and sensitise the school members to child abuse prevention activities. So far, the Childline in coordination with other departments has rescued 136 minors, including 53 girls, from wedlock. 

Speaking to the reporters on Saturday, the Childline Director J Godwin Prem Singh and the City Coordinator S Thiagarajan said, as many as 41 awareness programmes have been organised during the last fiscal year (till March 15) in schools and students were sensitised to child health, education, law and order and child trafficking. 

“The awareness drive proved to be effective and this helped the Childline to rescue as many as 136 minors during 2016-17, including 53 minor girls from marriage. This is more than 50 per cent and it was possible mainly because of the child right cubs that we set up in 330 schools across the district”, Thiagarajan said. 

This year, Childline has planned to promote mandatory reporting of child abuse through these clubs which has student volunteers from Class 9, Class 11 and two teachers as its members. “In most of the cases related to minor marriage, we get alerts through school teachers and peer group members. This has made our work easy that the number of minor marriages have come down remarkably in the district”, Godwin Prem Singh said. 

The Childline officials said that the girls between 14 and 16 years are the most vulnerable group and our organisation had been closely monitoring the school attendance records. Out of the 53 cases that we intervened, more than 35 were from rural areas. “Among the blocks, Thuraiyur, Marungapuri and Manapparai have been identified as vulnerable and have initiated steps to create awareness through the Village Health Nurses, anganwadi workers and Jamaats who have been playing a very active role in curbing minor marriages”, Singh added.