Child marriage is still prevalent in many pockets of our country and is one of the main reasons for school dropout of girls. Because of marriage and issues related to early pregnancy, many girls in Subarnapur district of Odisha started dropping out of school. And the sad part is, regardless of knowing the importance of education, these girls are mostly forced into marriage by their parents.
To prevent such cases, District Magistrate of Subarnapur, Aboli Naravane, started an initiative called the ‘Mission Zero Dropout’. This initiative was launched mainly to make the students as well as their parents aware about the importance of education, and to prevent child marriages and teenage pregnancy cases in the district.
BRINGING DROPOUTS BACK TO SCHOOL
While speaking to Indian Masterminds, Ms. Aboli Naravane said, “Many combined efforts have been made to prevent child marriages in Subarnapur and results have been good, bringing cases down comparatively. However, we saw an increase in the number of teenage pregnancies which was caused by informal arrangement of keeping the girl child at the in-law’s house without even getting her married. This majorly caused girls to drop out of school and colleges. Hence, from this academic year, we launched ‘Mission Zero Dropout’ to enroll the dropouts back in school and prevent cases of child marriages.”
ADOPTING TWO WAYS TO STOP CHILD MARRIAGE
There are two ways Subarnapur is adopting to get rid of child marriages cases in the district.
The first one is by enrolling the girl students back in their schools. There have been cases of girls dropping out twice from the same class. Anywhere else, such candidates are not allowed to enroll back. However, special arrangements have been made in Subarnapur district where girls are allowed to do so. Also, the DM mentioned that the girls who enroll back are given special assistance by the teachers, where they are not sidelined and given a chance to pick up from where they left.
Ms. Aboli said, “For the girls who clear the tenth standard and do not get enrolled in colleges, we have made special arrangement of enrolling them in Industrial Training Institute (ITI), which are heavily short of girl students. Through this initiative, our ITI has become one of the best performer in the state. We are also helping students with poor financial backgrounds in getting admission in good colleges across the state.”
The second way of stopping child marriages is by creating a special intelligence network of anganwadi workers and other people to stop child marriages immediately as and when the information comes. Counselling sessions are held in the cases of girls running away from home. Girls are even rescued after getting married with the help of the court. Parents of these girls are also counselled so that they don’t put any pressure on their child to get married early.
Ms. Aboli said, “We follow up the case until it is solved. Regular visits and counselling sessions are conducted by the teachers as well as the administration. Till the girl child starts coming to the school regularly, we plan on conducting such visits, so that they don’t take things for granted. Every 15 days, I conduct a review of all the headmasters in the high schools of the district where they brief me about every single girl.”
Moreover, because many have been booked by the district police in cases of child marriages and teenage pregnancy, it is sending a strong message to the public to not follow such practices.
The ‘Mission Zero Dropout’ initiative was launched in this academic year, and till now, almost 80 percent of the dropout girls have enrolled back in school. Earlier, from 800 cases of dropout, the number was brought down to 200.
