Community Voices
1. Reema(name changed), was married at the age of two and her husband died at the age of 5. She is the 6th daughter to her parents and early wedding was arranged to save cost of marriage. Her parents are the agricultural labours. Her other 4 sisters have got married and stay at their in laws. Reema has one younger brother.After all these she has continued her studies and still wants to study further. At the time of taking this case study she was a 16 year old girl studying in 10th class. Reema eldest sister is a devadasi and she does sex work in Sangli
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Meera (name changed) is a 12 years old girl belonging to ST category family. She is the eldest daughter and has two younger brothers. With her parents and siblings, she stays in in Bilagi taluk. She is studying in 6th standard. This house hold was visited by the AGP ORW during the survey.
Meera’s marriage was fixed to a 17year old boy. The marriage was planned to be in the month of April 2012. This information was given to ORW by their neighbor who is working in support of the adolescent girls program in the village. They also warned ORW that the family members do not listen to any suggestions and may not accept ORW’s words.
The ORW Renuka visited family and spoke to them about the consequence of child marriage, girl’s discontinuation of education and other problems which the girl and her family may have to undergo later. The mother wanted this marriage to happen as the father does not take any family responsibility and once the girl gets older they cannot afford to give huge dowry. But the ORW was successful in convincing the family to withdraw the commitment of marriage. ORW also spoke to the mediator of this marriage through Meera’s family. And finally the message is sent to the groom’s family.
The ORW did visit the family for the follow up and family members said that they are firm on their decision and they will not repeat such mistake. There is a paternal uncle of Meera and he had also tried convincing her parents to prevent this marriage but he was unsuccessful. AGP ORW was in touch with that uncle.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Saraswati ( name chanded) is 14 years old girl staying in Bilagi taluk. Saraswati stays with her parents and two younger brothers and one younger sister. Parents do work on wages in the fields. Sarswati had not gone to school since more than 6 months, but with AGP ORW’s help she could attend the exams for the same class (7th) and she got the attendance for the whole year too from her school.
ORW got information by Sarswati and her friends that her parents are trying to fix her marriage to an 18 year old boy from Herakal village. When the ORW went to the parents and wanted to take the information about the same, Sarswati’s father along with few DSS members(all men) started fighting with the ORW.
During the field visit DPC of AGP got to know about the same and reached the village, but by then the men folk had left the place. Later a community meeting was conducted; women from the same street and Sarswati’s mother too participated in the meeting. She said they are not organizing her marriage now but they are only fixing it marriage will be conducted after few years. In this meeting the women spoke and shared about the bad life experiences they have undergone due to early marriage, women without education and their problems. 12 out of 13 women participated in the meeting were the victims of child marriage. Sarswati’s left the meeting in between the discussion. Later there was an informal discussion with the men sitting in the same place.
Later this information is shared with the CDPO and Anganwadi supervisor.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Pooja(name changed) is a 16 year old girl, eldest daughter to her parents. She has two younger brothers. She has given her 10th exams this year and waiting for the results. She was very much interested in continuing her studies after 10th. She had expressed the same to the teachers in her school and also to the ORW. But her parents decided to marry her off. The reason for such decision was the bad name attached with the girl. Her neighbors told her parents that she talks to boys. So within 15 days her marriage was arranged and she got married on 26th of April 2012. She was met by the ORW about 6-7 times. ORW has also made the home visits about 3 times before the marriage decision was taken. ORW even visited her home and tried convincing to prevent the marriage but it was not helpful.
