Over 4,000 cases have been registered as part of the campaign against under-aged marriages in Assam, chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Thursday.
In a tweet, Sarma reiterated the resolve to end child marriages and said 4004 cases have been registered and more were likely. Sarma said action will begin from Friday while requesting all to cooperate.
On January 23, the Assam Cabinet approved a crackdown on child marriages as the National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5) carried out between 2019 and 2020 showed that percentage of women aged between 20-24 married before the legal age of 18 in the state was 31.8%, compared to the national figure of 23.3%.
NFHS-5 showed 11.7% of married women aged between 15-19 years were mothers or pregnant during the period of the survey compared to 6.8% nationally.
According to the NFHS-4 carried out in 2015 and 2016, 30.8% of marriages in Assam involved children against the national figure of 26.8%. As many as 13.6% of the married women in Assam aged between 15-19 were mothers or pregnant compared to 7.9% nationally, it said.
