The Government of India is currently considering increasing the minimum legal age of marriage for girls from 18 to 21 years. In response to this proposed move, we, 2500 young people from socio-economically marginalised backgrounds from 15 states in India, came together to share our views in a process that was facilitated by 96 civil society organisations.

For some of you, it might sound like a progressive change. We, young people, absolutely do not think it is.

Let us share our concerns about the change.

1. Increasing the age of marriage will not improve access to education for girls as we will still not have access to safe, quality and free education near our houses
2. Increasing the age of marriage will increase pressure, criminalisation and violence against young people in consensual relationships
3. Increasing the age of marriage will not change our parents mindsets and social norms that promote early and forced marriage for us girls who are seen as a burden
4. Increasing the age of marriage will not give us decent work and opportunities to grow our skills

Instead we demand:

1. Right to meaningful education
2. Right to be included and heard in all platforms of decision making
3. Right to sexual and reproductive health and bodily autonomy and mental health
4. Right to secure viable employment opportunities

Sign our petition and join us in asking the Ministry of Women & Child Development to stop the proposed increase in the age of marriage and instead fulfil the demands of young people.

Sign the petition with comments, share with your network, and write to the decision makers with the hashtags #YoungVoicesonMarriage and #knowwhatWEwant using the following Twitter handles:

@PMOIndia - Prime Minister’s office

@smritiirani - Minister, WCD

@JaitlyJaya - Chairperson of the Task Force: Ms Jaya Jaitly

Write to the concerned decision makers using the following email IDs:

PMO: https://pmopg.gov.in/pmocitizen/Grievancepmo.aspx

Ministry of WCD: min-wcd@gov.in 

Link to the report: https://www.concernedforworkingchildren.org/news/2020/07/young-voices-national-report-15-states-nearly-2500-young-people-submission-to-the-task-force-examining-age-of-marriage-and-other-concerns-july-2020/ 

Links to the Petition in regional languages: Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Bangla can also be found here: https://www.concernedforworkingchildren.org/news/2020/07/young-voices-national-report-15-states-nearly-2500-young-people-submission-to-the-task-force-examining-age-of-marriage-and-other-concerns-july-2020/

Our email id (You can copy us): cwc@pobox.com