New Life Foundation hails Supreme Court judgement on child marriage
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, October 21 2024: The New Life Foundation, Manipur has hailed a landmark judgement of the Supreme Court on child marriage.

On Friday (October 18), the Supreme Court issued guidelines for effective implementation of the child marriage law and said child marriage robs a child of her free will to choose life partner.

The Apex Court was hearing a petition filed by NGO SEVA and activist Nirmal Gorana, who are members of 'Child Marriage Free India' Campaign (CMFI) .

The CMFI campaign is a coalition of over 200 NGOs including the New Life Foundation-Manipur working in more than 400 districts across the country to end child marriage by 2030.The bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, on Friday, held that the authorities need to adopt a pre-vention-protection-prosecution strategy and community-driven approach for the implementation of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act (PCMA), 2006 .

Reading the judgment, Chief Justice DY Chandrachud said, "The law will only succeed when there is a multi-sectoral coordination.

Training and capacity building of the law enforcement officers needs to be there.

We emphasize that there needs to be community-driven approaches".

Welcoming the apex Court's judgment, New Life Foundation-Manipur, secretary Dr Lamabam Pishak Singh said, the judgement will give a significant push in endeavours to end child marriage in the country.

He also appealed to the State Government to follow and implement the guidelines of the SC and aid in making India child marriage free by the year 2030.Dr Lamabam Pishak said the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court include focus on ensuring that schools, religious institutions, and Panchayats are seats of awareness generation against child marriage, and the regions where child marriage prevails must include information on its prevention within the school curriculum.

"This is a very significant judgment for all of us.

The way State Government and even local authorities have been working with a resolve to end child marriage has been commendable and this judgment gives further strength to all of us," he said.

Bhuwan Ribhu, founder of 'Child Marriage Free India' campaign also lauded the SC judgement and said, "It will be a shot in the arm and shall be the tipping point in institutional resolve marking a significant victory in our mission to completely eradicate child marriage" .

"If we fail to protect our children, nothing else in life truly matters.

Child marriage is, in essence, child rape.

This decision not only strengthens our resolve but also underscores that through united efforts and accountability, we can ultimately end the worst form of violence against children, child marriage," he said.

Notably, the Child Marriage Free India (CMFI) campaign and its partner NGOs have successfully prevented over 120,000 child marriages across the country.

Additionally, Government efforts have protected more than 11 lakh vulnerable children from being married off.

The over 200 NGO partners of 'Child Marriage Free India' campaign follow a holistic strategy namely PICKET (Policy, Institution, Collaboration, Knowledge, Ecosystem, Technology) in their efforts.

The NGO partners of Child Marriage Free India with religious leaders and communities have created over 50,000 'child marriage free villages' across India in 2023-24 .

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