India’s Child Brides and Youngest Mothers: Beyond Popular Perceptions

Abstract

Over one million girls in India are married off before they turn 15 years of age, and more than four hundred thousand among them bear children. This article aims to identify and locate regionally the youngest cohort of child brides and adolescent mothers. It seeks to highlight the associated complexities and challenges of this feature in the country using Census of India, 2011 data. The analysis shows that, at first level, this phenomenon represents in a broad east-west regional pattern; in the second level of disaggregation, it emerges in rural Rajasthan and urban parts of Gujarat and Maharashtra and, in the third level, it emerges in particular pockets like Bhilwara, Ajmer, Chittaurgarh, Tonk, Ahmedabad, Kheda and Gandhinagar. This article shows that the incidence of the phenomenon of child brides does not reflect a clear linkage with the regional location of population groups such as north India or rural India. The popular characterisation of this feature on regional lines fails to spot its incidence across the country and undermines the gravity of the issue in almost every district.