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Women in Nepal
Nepal: Social Life - Child Marriage
Dom girls marry early to escape poverty
Child marriages
Dom girls marry early to escape poverty
Deva Malikar does not know anything about children's right, nor has he heard anything about women's rights. Like everyone in his Dom community here, he too has married off his daughter Manju and niece Anita even before the girls have reached puberty. Manju is six years old and Anita has just turned four. When asked why he has married the girls so young, Malikar says that this is the custom of the Doms. "I too was first married when I was just three years old," he says.

His wife Devi Malikar gives a more practical answer. " Once the girls are big they only get ëDutibars' (second timers)" she says. Giving her own example she says, "My dad did not marry me off till I was 12 years old and that is why I got married to this old man." She smiles and points at her husband.

Deva is 42 years old and Devi has just turned 30. The reason for the huge age difference between the two is the fact that Deva married Devi after his first wife, Harimariwali died after giving birth to a son. Deva has altogether eight children, four sons and three daughters from Devi and a son from previous marriage. "It's not only I that have married my daughters in early years, all the Doms get their children married before they are ten years old," Deva says.
He gives his reason for getting the children married off at an early age. "Life is not certain, anything can happen to us anytime," says he. "Who will marry the children if something happens to the parents ?" he questions.

The girls too seem to have adapted to their early-married life or at least begun to feel for their husbands. Anita was married just two months ago to five years old Binod who is squinted, the son of Majirba Malikar from Loharpatti. She is hurt when anyone calls Binod a kahna (squinted). " Shall I call your husband a thatengra (lame) ?" she questions when her cousin Manju calls Binod a kahna.

The Doms are totally unaware of the laws against child marriage. When tried to inform them about the existing laws the Malikar couple get angry. "Which office? Which Police will punish us?" they question. "The law does not care when we sleep hungry. No police or any official comes and asks us if our children are hungry and why do we have to ask them to get our children married?" they say.

The Malikar couple who earn by making mattress, boxes, and other traditional household items out of bamboo say that they spent around Rs 12,000 for the weddings. They explain proudly how they feasted 15 guests from the groom side for three consecutive days of the weddings..

Child marriages

This is the story of Dom community living in the tarai belt of the country.

The advocacy campaigns against child marriage primarily by the NGOs might have brought some changes in perceptions about it, in other areas. But not in the Dom community. This community is neither touched by the advocacy programmes nor is anybody in the community thinking about changing it. Child marriage, for them is a deep rooted tradition and they only want to uphold their tradition.

What is the right age for anybody to get married? The answer would differ from place to place throughout the country. The most acceptable answer would be: girls should be at least over 16 and boys above 18. You would be utterly dismayed by the answer the Dom people will give for the question. For them any child who is no more breasted is eligible for marriage. The parents are just petrified to let their child get any older than eight years. "They do not get a suitable mate once they are over eight years of age," says a local Dom.

The marriage code on Muluki Ain (civil code) states that anybody who gets a girl below the age of ten years married shall be penalised a cash amount from Rs 5,00 to Rs 5,000. They will also be put into jail for three months to three years. These legal provisions do not touch the Doms, not that they are aware of. "We do not know the law," says Krishna Malli. "This is our tradition." Sobhit has yet another reason to give on why they go for early marriage. "Who will look after my daughter if I die before she becomes 16 and gets married," says he. "Now if I get her married somebody will be there to look after her even if I die tomorrow," says Sobhit pointing at his four year old daughter.

Once the girl gets married, she does not return to her husband's house until he comes to take her. During the gap of years till she finally comes to stay with her husbands family she does not even visit her husband's house even once. And it is the other members of family who remain in touch with eachother. It is not that all these marriages arranged by the parents have a happy ending. Some get broken too. Should a condition to break any marriage arise, the village Panchayat gets to decide on the compensation that has to be paid by the party asking to end the marriage.

Narayan Malli, a resident of Malangawa municipality-3 says that his wife did not agree to come withhim when they were old enough. "But I got Rs 10,000 compensation from my in-laws," says Narayan. Despite this deeprooted tradition, there are some who would like to change it for the better and end up being ridiculed by the community. "I want to educate my daughter and get her married off at the appropriate age," says Bali Malli, a retired employee of the municipality pointing at his daughter, five year old Mamata. "I can perceive sarcasm in everything that the villagers talk about," says Bali. The district court says that there is nothing it can possibly do to stop this tradition. "We can initiate actions if any cases on child marriage are filed in the court and proved," says an officer at the court. But till now no cases of child marriage are registered in the court and taking actions against those practising it is still far off.

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Child Marriage and the Law
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