Campaign to End Child Marriages

In Uttar Pradesh, child marriage is often overlooked as a societal issue. Our organisation focuses on establishing it as a concern through dialogues with stakeholders, public officials, and community members. Collaborating with religious leaders, we address traditions and religious beliefs that influence child marriages. Inter-faith workshops are organised to promote societal change, as we believe change begins with leadership.

We have linked over 100 survivors to our campaign, documenting their testimonies to empower them as advocates against child marriage. Our efforts have directly stopped over 20 child marriages and identified 100 families at risk, supporting them through continuous monitoring and empowerment. Awareness is raised through mobile kiosks and meetings like “Aap Beeti,” where survivors share their stories to highlight the issue’s impact.

Stakeholders from grassroots to state levels, including Anganwadi workers, local leaders, and state agencies, are mapped to assist the campaign. In Varanasi Division, policy-level workshops have trained key officials on the Child Marriage Act. Education plays a critical role in empowering communities, as research shows lower parental aspirations for girls’ education increase marriage risks. Strengthening children and raising awareness among adults about their responsibility is key to ending child marriages and protecting children’s rights.

Scaling Up

  1. Establishing dialogues against Gender discrimination
  2. Ensuring linkages in Secondary Education
  3. Target urban slum and rural households
  4. Scaling up of inter-faith dialogue meetings and establishing among religious leaders
  5. Engaging young men and boys to stand up against child-marriage
  6. Developing collaborations with CBOs and other functionaries
  7. Facilitating law-enforcement through capacity building of legal stakeholders
  8. Strengthening children and youth groups to stand up against child-marriages. To create sustainable change, it is important to empower the potential future victims
  9. Mobilizing Families and Communities
  10. Providing Services to child marriage survivors, such as counselling, access to legal support, need based rehabilitation services
  11. Building awareness against practices dowry
  12. Increasing our intervention from Chandauli, Ghazipur, Varanasi, Mirzapur and Bhadohi to other districts with higher rates of child-marriage
  13. Advocating for establishing child marriage rules and Standard Operation