Bihar is the worst offender in the country in child marriages, according to the National Family Health Survey.

Experts said majority of these marriages are sham ones. People from states (including Haryana and Punjab) where the sex ratio is skewed, visit Seemanchal to buy and marry minor girls from the area. The minors are then sold off and trafficked.

Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi will visit Patna on October 2 as part of his Bharat Yatra campaign against child labour and child trafficking. He will start his campaign from Kanyakumari on September 11 and cover 22 states before reaching Delhi on October 16.

Bachpan Bachao Andolan state convener Mukhtar-ul-Haque, also the eastern zone co-ordinator of Bharat Yatra, said: 'The Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foundation is organising this yatra. It will be one of its kind in the sense that Satyarthi, along with other dignitaries would speak to child labourers and intervene in child marriages at various points during the yatra. The Nobel laureate will try to convince the parents not to force their children into labour or marriage again. The yatra will have an impact on the masses as Satyarthiji has been working on these issues since a long time. He knows very well how to present his point before the victims and their families.'

Satyarthi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 for his work against child labour, had started working on the issue from Bihar. He founded Bachpan Bachao Andolan, which had organised a yatra against bonded labour at Nagar Utari in undivided Bihar (Nagar Utari is now in Jharkhand).

'Satyarthi ji's yatra is also very special because he again will touch the child labour-prone districts of the state as he had done 37 years ago. The yatra becomes more special because it has coincided with centenary celebrations of Gandhi's Champaran yatra. The yatra venue in Patna is, however, yet to be decided but it is for sure that people from the state government machinery, politicians and judiciary system will be part of it,' added Haque.

Haque said: 'Street plays in regional languages will be one of the highlights of the yatra. Apart from regional artistes, professional artistes would also present their act.'

'Kishanganj, Purnea, Araria, Supaul and Madhepura will be among districts with most child labour to be covered in the yatra,' said Haque.