Question: Union Cabinet has approved a proposal to raise the legal marriage age of women from 18 to how many years?
(a) 19 Years
(b) 20 Years
(c) 21 Years
(d) 22 Years
Answer: (c)
Related Facts:
- The Centre has decided to raise the legal age of marriage of women from 18 to 21 years and is likely to move legislative amendments in the ongoing winter session of Parliament.
- The decision is based on the recommendation of a four-member task force led by former Samata Party chief Jaya Jaitly.
- The proposed bill may also seek to make consequential changes to various personal laws relating to marriage of various communities to ensure a uniform marriage age.
- The government will now look to introduce amendments to the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, Special Marriage Act, and the Hindu Marriage Act to bring the plan into action.
- The panel was constituted in June 2020. Its terms of reference included examining the correlation of age of marriage and motherhood with the health of the mother and infant as well as key health and population indicators like Infant Mortality Rate (IMR), Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR), Total Fertility Rate (TFR), Sex Ratio at Birth (SRB), Child Sex Ratio (CSR) etc.
- It was also tasked to suggest measures for promoting higher education among women.
- According to the National Family Health Survey-5, in 2019-2021 23.3% of women in the age of 20 to 24 were married before the age of 18, which is an improvement from 26.8% in 2015-2016.
BY: AMIT GUPTA