Munmun Kaur-
Published On: December 16, 2021 at 11:30 IST
The Cabinet approved the proposal of increasing the legal marriage age of women from 18 to 21. Thus, equalizing the legal marriageable age of both genders.
This comes more than a year later when the Prime Minister declared this plan in his address on 74th Independence Day.
This approval is based on the recommendations submitted by the Centre’s task force, headed by Jaya Jaitly to Niti Aayog in December 2020.
This task force was constituted to look into the Matters pertaining to age of motherhood, imperatives of lowering MMR (Maternal Mortality Rate), improvement nutritional levels and related issues.
The task force made several other recommendations like that of working on public awareness for the social acceptance of this decision, sex education to be included in the school curriculum, training of women in polytechnic institutes, etc.
As per the sources, after this approval from the Cabinet, the Government will move on to making amendments to the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, the Special Marriage Act, and personal legal instruments such as the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.
“If girls can show they are financially independent, parents will think twice before marrying them off early,’’ said sources.
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Legality of Live-in Relationships in India.