(From left) Mary Robinson, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Ela Bhatt and Gro Harlem Brundtland at the seminar in Patna on Tuesday. Picture by Ashok Sinha

Patna, Feb. 7: Bihar is at the top among the Indian states where women are married off before the age of 18.

As many as 69 per cent of women in the state get married before the legally permissible age. And with 47 per cent of girl children getting married before attaining the age of 18, India is at the top of the world in practising this social evil.

The spread of the social scourge brought Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, chairman of The Elders — a global human rights and civil liberty organisation founded by Nelson Mandela in 2007 — and his high-profile team members to Patna today to spread the message against child marriages.

“Earlier, I would think that the phenomenon (of child marriage) was confined to African countries. But we have discovered that almost all Asian, African and Middle-Eastern countries too are a party to this malevolence,” said Tutu, winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize.

Present along with Tutu were Gro Harlem Brundtland, a former Prime Minister of Norway and former director-general of the World Health Organisation, Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, and Ela Bhatt, founder of the Self-Employment Association of India (SEVA).

The Elders though appeared optimistic that child marriage would end in the future. The enthusiastic response they received from children at a nondescript Phulwar village in Patna district’s Masaurhi block has given them hope.

“There was a glint in their (children’s) eyes and they were quite vivacious. They were determined not to get married before attaining the legal age,” said Tutu, animatedly sharing his interaction with the kids.

Jagriti, an NGO working for children and women’s rights, had organised the interaction with the Phulwar kids.

Tutu and his team members also met chief minister Nitish Kumar and suggested some measures to stop child marriage. Among the steps they outlined was strict implementation of the law to register births and marriages.

“We appreciate that the government has put in place a law that entitles a girl to marry only after attaining the age of 18 and boys after 21. But the law must be enforced to ensure that women get what God has made them for and India becomes what it deserves to become,” Tutu said. “It is heartening to learn that India is fast emerging as a big economic power. It is better that the evil of child marriage is stopped in the land aspiring to become a world economic power.”

Brundtland, a doctor by training, said: “The health effect of child marriage is enormous. Girls who become pregnant and give birth when they are very young are at far higher risk of death and injury than those who give birth in their twenties. Their (children’s) babies also are more likely to become ill and die in infancy.”

Robinson emphasised the need for education among the women to stop the practice. “Once a girl gets a chance to go to school and delay her marriage until she is over 18, it is hard to imagine that she would allow her offspring to marry young,” she said.

It was the fist visit of Tutu and the others to Bihar. “I had visited India for the first time in 1972. But I feel that my visit to Bihar is very special,” Tutu said. Robinson said she had visited India in the past as the President of Ireland and also as the representative of the UN. “But the visit as a crusader against the social evil impeding all-round development of the human race and human resources is very special. I am enamoured by the response from the people,” she said.