Mumbai: As many as 790 child wedding have been prevented in Maharashtra during the Covid-19 pandemic far, Women and Child Development Minister Yashomati Thakur said on Thursday. She was speaking to reporters after the state government, UNICEF and NGO Akshay Centre launched a new campaign to bring down the number of such weddings further. A sudden spurt in child weddings was witnessed during lockdown, which prompted the government to launch the latest campaign which will run from August 5 to the end of September.
According to officials, the district of Solapur led the list with 88 weddings of girls under 18 years being prevented since April 2020, followed by Aurangabad (62), Osmanabad (45), Nanded (45), Yavatmal (42) and Beed (40).
The incidence of child weddings in the state declined from 47.7 per cent in 1998 to 21.9 per cent in 2019, but even now one in five marriages involves underage girls and there has been increase in such incidents in some districts.
