Thayi too early: Teen moms suffer in these Karnataka villages

YELANDUR/KOLLEGAL: Geetha, 15, is anaemic and constantly fatigued. Living in the hinterlands of Yelandur taluk, where taking one’s family business public is still unwelcome, she snuck out to tell her story. She will deliver a baby any day now. “The doctor said the baby has low weight,” she said. “If I have a girl, I won’t let her get married very young.”
She is not alone.A visit by TOI to Yelandur and Kollegala in Chamarajanagara district — activists say they have among the highest incidence of child marriage in Karnataka — revealed that most beneficiaries of the government’s Thayi Bhagya Scheme in these taluks are minors.

In Yelandur, with 33 small villages and a population of 8,000, nearly one in two households has had a child marriage. TOI met about 20 girls who were either pregnant, or mothers of one or more children at the age of 16 or 17. And they all had Thayi cards, issued to help them and their offspring avail of various benefits under the mater nal healthcare programme.
“Child marriage is common here. I got the Thayi card from an auxiliary nurse midwife,” said 16-yearold Reshma who delivered her second child a few weeks ago. She has been married for three years. Her husband is 26. Apart from problems arising out of teenage pregnancy, these girls grapple with a host of other issues: Desertion by families, getting widowed at a young age, domestic violence and financial dependence, among other problems.
“Nobody asks me my age when I go for health checkups as I have the Thayi card,” said Padma, 17, who is five months pregnant.
An official from the women and child development department’s Child Marriage Prohibition Cell, said it is mandatory for all officials and auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs) to call the child helpline or the cell when they come across marriages of minors. ANMs, however, say they are only trying to do what is best for young mothers. “We know the actual age of all the girls who are married before 18 but face threats from their families not to state the age on record,” one auxiliary nurse midwife said. “Moreover, no one else comes back to check on the girls apart from us. Police are not supportive either.”
“Families condition the girls never to reject marriage even if they are only 12 years old,” said Father Adiss Arnold, a child rights activist from the region. “The parents offer various reasons to get their girls married when they are still minors. These range from poverty to the need to prevent their daughters from getting into relationships.”
Members of NGOs claim that in just five districts of Karnataka — Bidar, Bagalkot, Belagavi, Chikkaballapura and Chamarajanagara — around 3,000 minors are married on record. In Kollegal and Yelandur, they have identified 631 girls, of whom 115 had pregnancies as teens.
Child Rights Trust (CRT) executive director Vasudev Sharma says the important question to ask is what happens to minor girls after their families get them married.
“They don’t want to be separated but want financial freedom,” he said. “The government must look at the rehabilitation of these girls.
About seven agencies in the region, Child Rights Trust and the Terre des Hommes (TDH) International Federation, Netherlands, are working to rehabilitate many of the girls.
(Names of minors changed)