Nepal girls face fears of new child marriage in discussions to change the law | Gender Equity News

Bardiya, Nepal-Bali*, unlike most girls around her, she did not like singing or dancing. She loved cars and dreamed of how it felt to wrap her fingers around the wheels and leave the village behind in the rearview mirror.

However, her dream was shortened to her sixth birthday when she was sold to a slave by her parents.

For five years she rubbed food, cleaned the floors, and worked the fields for a family of caste more privileged than her. The caste system that is prevalent in South Asia is a social hierarchy that has been around for centuries and continues to shape society. People from the Lang caste under the ladder continue to face established discrimination despite modern laws against prejudice.

In return, Bali parents were allowed to rent patches of land in the Bardiya district, 540km (336 miles) west of the capital Kathmandu.

At age 13, Bali married a man who was an electrician six years older than her. She was pregnant with only daughter a year later.

Outside her one-room home in Baldya, now 32, she told Al Jazeera that her biggest wish was for her 17-year-old daughter to stay at school.

“I can’t see her trapped in an early marriage like I did,” she said.

Bali’s daughter is one of millions of adolescent girls in Nepal, and women’s rights activists fear that if it is being discussed by the government to reduce legal marriage age from 20 to 18, it could increase the risk of harm.

In support of the goal of ending child marriages by 2030, the Nepal government officially raised the minimum age for marriage in 2017. Nepal citizens can vote at age 18, but the idea behind the age of marriage was for young women to complete the school and make relatively informed choices. For the first time, anyone deemed to be breaching the law could face a fine of up to 10,000 Nepali rupees ($73) in prison for up to three years.

In countries with weaker law enforcement, the aim of increasing the minimum age of marriage was to send a broader signal to conservative societies. Especially when women are unable to marry early, women benefit.

However, on January 15, 2025, in a move to encourage national debate, a House of Representatives subcommittee recommended lowering the legal age to 18.

The recommendation concluded that “based on earthly reality, we believe that reducing the age of marriage to 18 reduces legal complexity and reflects the social reality of rural Nepal.”

Supporters of the lowering of age law argue that innocent men will stop them from being imprisoned by getting married out of love. Others, including human rights groups, women’s advocacy groups and teenage girls interviewed by Al Jazeera, say the recommendation is designed to protect men rather than promote gender equality in Nepal.

Although illegal since 1963, child marriage has been practiced for generations in Nepal, particularly in rural communities where 78% of the population of the Himalayan countries live. According to UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Agency, Nepal has over 5 million child brides. 37% of women under the age of 30 get married before their 18th birthday.

All over the world, child marriages are multifaceted. South Asia, the region with the highest number of child brides, remains deeply embedded in traditional customs and social norms.

The prevalence of child marriage in Nepal has declined over the past decade, but slides are much slower than in the South Asia region (15%) (15%), according to the Child Marriage Data Portal, a government-supported initiative in Belgium, Canada, Italy, Yola, Norway, the UK and the US and Europe. Nonprofits and campaigners say efforts to eliminate child marriage in Nepal have been hampered by economic and social issues that are inherent to the country.

A generation of suffering began in 1996, when a decade-long Nepal civil war destroyed communities across the country. The 2015 earthquake killed around 9,000 people (most of which are in Nepal) and made hundreds of thousands of homeless people. Six months later, the lockdown from India brought under 3 million Nepali children under the age of five at risk of death due to shortages of fuel, food and medicine. The Covid-19 pandemic has affected nearly 1 million jobs in tourism in Nepal. This is withdrawing 6.7% of GDP from the industry.

Lifeline for young girls

Child marriages in Nepal usually see a girl handing over complete control of her future to her husband’s family. It often blocks education and employment, increasing the likelihood of physical and psychological abuse.

Bali recalls one of the most painful effects of being married every time she sees her daughter.

When Bali gave birth, her daughter was “yellow and weighed only 4 pounds.” [1.8kg]She told Al Jazeera. Like me, my daughter is very easy to get tired now and needs daily medicine. ”

MinakumariParajuli, a regional manager at Plan International, an NGO that has been working on child rights in Nepal since 1978, says that child brides are “a much higher risk” to get pregnant at an early age, which could lead to a higher rate of malnutrition, anemia and maternal and infant mortality.

One afternoon in 2021, the vocational training program offered by Plan International attracted Bali’s attention. If you choose, she will be given a driving lesson. After passing her test, she proceeded to training to drive and drive a heavy cargo vehicle (HGV).

“I was nervous, but I was excited because I knew I could do that,” she told Al Jazeera.

It took her HGV license 45 days to arrive. Bali made it EC. The hauling company she currently works for help fund her daughter’s medicine, and she transports a large amount of rocks every day for construction.

“I’m the only woman who’s ever worked as a driver in a company and I’m very proud of it. I can drive to make a living now!”

I’m suffering in silence

Other women are still silent, including 18-year-old Kimma, who lives near the Indian border in Bardiya with her 36-year-old mother.

“Every morning she was always dressed and ready to go to school before her siblings,” Kima’s mother recalled with tears in her eyes. “She really enjoyed her learning.”

Dressed in a bright orange fleece jacket, Kima’s hands, decorated with prints of her feet, are held in front of her. Her gaze is still as described as watching her father beat her mother, who was forced to marry him when she was 14 years old.

In January this year, at the request of her mother, Kima (17 at the time), she married a man she had met before. He is 27 years old. “If she got married, she thought she had a better chance in life,” her mother said. “So I told Kima to do that.”

Kimma says she wants to finish her education, but she doesn’t know if her “husband’s family will allow it.”

Kima’s marriage, like many other families in the most disadvantaged families, was negotiated by her relatives. That means one less mouth to feed the girl’s family, and often she has extra hands to work for her new in-laws and contribute to the home.

“We said it’s difficult to get to the girls,” said Palajuli, whose NGOs provide support and customized care to victims of child marriage. [who are married early] Because they are increasingly socially isolated from their peers.”

Like Anjali, 22, she was 14 when she entered “A Love Marriage.” This is a term used throughout South Asia to define marriages not arranged by a couple’s family. Anjali secretly married her husband, as she came from a privileged caste.

Being a Dalit, a community at the bottom of the complex Hindu caste hierarchy, meant Anjali was effectively imprisoned in her in-laws for the five years after her marriage. Anjali was forced to work in his field and was forbidden from seeing friends or returning to school.

Caste prejudice against her is so strong that she and her daughter were not allowed to enter the family home despite living on the husband’s family property. “They let me and their own granddaughter sleep in the field shed for five years,” she said.

During monsoon season, she recalled that “water gushed through unroofed shelters, often causing her to tremble and shaking until the morning.”

Since her marriage, her husband has been working abroad in India and rarely visits. Bound by her in-laws and without access to education or employment, Anjali was desperate.

Last year, she received a loan of Rs 50,000 ($362) from a group of local women to build a small stone house with two rooms. She is inaccessible to running water, and her only window is a broken hole covered in faded newspapers.

“This house is my palace,” Anjali told Al Jazeera. “After not seeing my husband for two years and enduring everything myself, I have peace here.”

A new generation with hope

In some rural areas of Nepal, there are indicators that young girls and boys are aiming for change.

Along with Plan International, a grassroots organization called Banke Unesco (unrelated to UNESCO) trains local governments, law enforcement agencies, religious leaders, schools and youth groups to identify and prevent child marriages and help at-risk girls and adolescents.

Bardiya’s project lead, Mahesh Nepali, told Al Jazeera that since 2015, the proportion of child marriages has fallen from 58% to 22% in many districts in the region.

Regarding potential legal changes, Nepal said it was “wrong” to reduce the age of legal marriage for two years.

“It would undermine all the work we’ve done to raise awareness about how dangerous a young marriage is,” he said.

Swostika, 17, is a member of the Champions of Change. This is a campaign group launched by Plan International in 41 countries to combat gender-based violence and abuse in marginalized and often inaccessible communities.

Despite the threat of group members being beaten or lured to advocate, Swostika and her team remain rebellious. During the Covid-19 pandemic, she launched a social media campaign, inviting hundreds of young girls to an online group each asked to sign a declaration on the practice.

“The network has grown and grown,” she says, and now they meet for two hours every Saturday, saying, “Someone [has] What do you need to do to be affected and eliminate it? [child marriage] Completely.”

“In the beginning, even my parents told me to stop the campaign because they were worried about my safety,” Slottica told Al Jazeera.

But she didn’t listen.

“There’s a real change going on,” she said. “I believe the next generation of girls and boys don’t have the same problems we faced. We just need to keep fighting.”

*The last name of the victim and their relatives has been removed to protect privacy.