Street drama to reduce child marriage practice

By Nagendra Kumar Karna,Mahottari, Apr. 27: Street dramas with the slogan 'Don't talk about marriage, it has not been 20 years', have been performed in different places of district headquarters Jaleshwor to reduce child marriage incidents. 

With the support of Jaleshwor Municipality, the National Federation of Youth, a non-government organisation, staged street plays in more than half a dozen places.

Rakesh Shah, secretary of the host organisation, said that street plays were performed among the students to generate public awareness where incidents of child marriages are high.

Secretary Shah said that children and parents were informed about the negative effects of child marriage and the legal actions they may face for arranging marriages through street plays.

Ward Chairman of Jaleshwor Municipality-2 Barun Kumar Dahal said that the street plays were  performed to inform school children and parents about the effects of child marriage on education, health and their lives and families.

In order to reduce child marriage, the local government is also conducting public awareness programmes like street drama, forming children's clubs and training them.

The District Police Office, Mahottari, has also been conducting public awareness programmes to reduce the incidents of child marriages by reaching the communities of Dom, Chamar, Halkhor and other castes where child marriage cases are high.

The Civil (Code) Act, 2074 BS has set the marriage age for boys and girls at 20 years. In case of marriage before the age of 20, the offender will be imprisoned for up to three years and fined up to 30,000 rupees.

In order to reduce child marriage cases, the Child Marriage Reduction Local System Purification Project has been launched in seven local levels of the district for a few months.

 The project is running in Jaleshwor, Matihani, Loharpatti, Balba and Manarasishwa Municipalities and Pipra and Mahottari Rural Municipality of the district.