SARLAHI, Feb 16: Bifiya Devi Sada was too young to understand life when she was married off. Sada, now 30, was married off at the tender age of 13, and is already a mother of eight.
It seems like getting married at an early age is a ritual in the family. Sada’s eldest daughter Gita Sada has also been married off at 13. She is just 18 now.
Gita’s son died within six days of birth. She gave birth to another son within less than a year of the death the first son. Her son Pawan is four years old and her daughter is two and a half. She has already given birth to three children even at this young age.
Gita got married to a boy nearby her house very early and didn’t realize what was happening during her first pregnancy.
“I was very young when I was pregnant for the first time. I realized that I was pregnant only after three months when my stomach started stretching and hurting,” said she.
She gave birth to the first baby in the seventh month of pregnancy and couldn’t save the baby because of the immature birth. She also informed that she was unable to breastfeed her son due to her physical immaturity.
On the other hand, her mother Sada has been suffering incessantly. After giving birth to eight children, she has turned feeble. She is unable to toil hard like earlier and earn for her family. She has developed a serious problem with her respiration. Also, she is unable to fetch water from the tap near her house. Her five daughters, who are really young, are helping her with the household chores.
Young Musahar mothers with their children at a Musahar community at Gauri Shankar VDC-9 in Sarlahi district last week.
No one in Sada’s and Gita’s family is literate. The little kids are not sent to school. (Republica)
Most of the families in Musahar community in Babargung-8 are found practicing child marriage. Dahori Devi, 60, shared that the desire for grand-children is a major reason for the early marriage of sons and daughters.
None of the awareness programs on mitigating child marriage has made any impact. Most of the trainings and seminars about child marriage are organized at district headquarters while the problem of child marriage remains rampant in the Musahar settlement.
Among the Madhesi Dalits of the Tarai, the Musahars are quite backward in the Human Development Index. In the Musahar community,
where a majority relies on everyday labor for their survival, the health of most of the women is in a critical state due to early-age pregnancy and numerous childbirths.
Children in the Musahar community remain out of schools and these marginalized people are also not able to benefit from the free medical services in government hospitals. - Source:-myrepublica
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