A recent government survey has revealed that around six per cent of rural women in Odisha get married before attaining the legal age of marriage which is 18. This statistics points towards the continuation of practice of child marriage in the state.
For this annual health survey 1,798 rural and 566 urban units comprising a total of 4,56,413 households and covering nearly 20 lakh people surveyed. The statistics of the study revealed that the marriage of girls below legal age is common in rural areas.
"It varies from 0.5 percent to 24.7 percent," Bishnupada Sethi, director of census operations in the state has been quoted telling to IANS.
The survey made some startling revelations and said that around 6.5 percent girls in rural areas and 3.2 percent girls in urban areas had got married when they had not attained the age of 18 during 2007-2008.
The health study found that 0.5 percent girls below 18 years of age got married during 2007-2008 in Jagatsinghpur, it was found to be 24.7 percent in the Maoist infested Nabarangpur district during the same period.
The government of India is conducting the annual health survey in 284 districts of nine states - Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Assam - to get detailed and reliable data, primarily on the health condition of women and children.
The fieldwork for this health survey conducted for 2010-2011 in Odisha was done by New Delhi based GfK MODE Pvt. Ltd and Social and Rural Research Institute (IMRB International). The Directorate of Census Operations monitored the survey.
--with inputs from IANS
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