Like any adolescent, Sangeeta Lohar has dreams about her future. The confident 17-year-old wants to complete her education and become a nurse — hastily clarifying with a smile, “a nurse, not in a tea garden hospital, but in a town”. Girls in her community of adivasis working in the tea gardens of Assam are rarely able to live out their childhood or weave dreams for themselves. Child marriages are common among them, leading to poor social indices.

Most of the workers in Assam’s tea plantations are tribal migrants, whose ancestors were brought over from the neighbouring states of Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh more than a century ago. But while Assam’s tea industry has made tremendous progress over the years, the workers continue to lead dismal lives, plagued by ignorance, illiteracy, poor health and poverty. Child marriages are a direct offshoot of this.

As Moni Komar, a tea garden worker in Sonitpur district, on the north bank of the Brahmaputra river, explains, “Girls, once they are 15 or 16, can work in the tea garden and earn some money for their families. From an early age they are taught to cook, wash dishes and clothes, and look after their siblings. So parents feel that their daughters are ready for marriage by that age.” Moni was married at 17 and had two children before she turned 20.

According to government data, at 40 per cent the prevalence of child marriage in Assam is lower than the national average of 43 per cent (source: Unicef), but it is much higher in some pockets such as tea gardens. A study by Assam Branch of Indian Tea Association (ABITA) in Dibrugarh, a tea garden-intensive district, found that one-fourth of the respondents (4,100 parents) felt it was appropriate for girls to marry between the ages of 14 and 18.

The reasons for this are varied. For one, as Moni points out, girls are considered better-suited for work such as the plucking of leaves, and easily find employment in their teens. Once they become wage earners, they are deemed to be of marriageable age.

Poor schooling is another important factor. Tea gardens have schools only up to primary level. Girls drop out after that, as their parents are unwilling to send them to schools that are further away. Added to all this is the general non-preference for daughters. Madan Kishan, medical health assistant at a tea garden hospital in Sonitpur and a member of the local community, explains, “The tea tribe community has always preferred male children to female. It is the usual argument — girls get married and go away while sons stay and look after parents in their old age. So they are eager to relinquish the responsibility of caring for their daughters as soon as possible.”

The third factor is a rather curious one, and not that prevalent among other communities — elopement. Teenage couples often run away to marry against their families’ wishes. Anita Lohar, an adivasi tea worker, says, “Elopements take place all the time. My sister’s daughter, Rupa, was just 15 when she went away with a boy of her age from a neighbouring line [demarcated labour colonies in the gardens are termed ‘labour lines’]. They came back a month later and their parents had no option but to get them married.”

Anita blames the use of mobile phones and cinema (read Bollywood) for this trend. “Our neighbour’s daughter also eloped at 16. This is why girls should be married before they can make such mistakes,” she adds.

However, the repercussions of child marriage are extremely adverse. An early pregnancy puts at risk the lives of both the mother and baby. Sandip Ghosh of ABITA says the mean age for motherhood in the tea gardens is 19.3 years. Dr Ziaur Rahman, who practises in a Sonitpur tea garden, says many adolescent girls and women in the gardens are anaemic because of poor diets, so early pregnancies result in higher maternal deaths.

Desertion is yet another risk in early marriages. Sarati Kisan, member of a Mothers’ Club formed by ABITA to spread health awareness, says, “They marry young and find it difficult to cope. If the girl becomes pregnant, the boy is not mentally prepared to shoulder the responsibility. Many young women return to their parents’ home and lead lives of great uncertainty.”

Despite a declining trajectory, Assam still has one of the country’s highest maternal mortality ratios (MMR) — 328 per one lakh live births. According to Mondakini Gogoi, a National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) official in Jorhat district, the tea gardens have pushed up the state’s MMR and IMR (infant mortality rate) levels. “The gardens are our focus area now,” she says.

Adolescent Girls Clubs, run by ABITA in partnership with Unicef, are now actively working to prevent child marriages in the tea gardens. When Seema, a 14-year-old from a Dibrugarh tea garden, found out that her parents were planning to get her married, she got in touch with her friend Rumi, 13, and other members of her club. Together they convinced Seema’s parents of the physical, emotional, and other toll taken by child marriage.

“Seema’s grandmother was especially difficult to convince, but she finally came around. We also told the family that child marriage is against the law,” Rumi adds. Today, the girls are thrilled to have Seema back in school. According to Unicef, the tea garden clubs have reported 144 cases of child marriage during 2008-10, and have successfully stalled 12 of them.

Anita Aind, 19, who is doing her bachelor’s in education and wants to become a teacher, observes that there has been a drop in the number of child marriages. “Parents now realise the importance of education… My parents continue to work in the garden, but ensured that I studied along with my brothers.”

Her friend Rupali seconds her, “I am in Class 12 and want to do a course in nursing. Most girls in our labour line are studying today and you won’t find any child marriage there!”

(This feature has been written under the National Media Fellowship awarded by the National Foundation of India)

Azera Parveen Rahman, Women’s Feature Service

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