There is a small settlement of 20-22 houses near village Ratedi in Dewas district, in which people of Nath (Sapera) community live in mud houses. These people mainly keep snakes and some do daily wage labour to earn their living. They sometimes go door to door to get food when there is no work in the market. Due to poverty, there is a lack of both education and health. These people do not have documents required for school admission like identity cards / Aadhar cards.
While surveying the drop-out children in their area, the team members saw two sisters Payal and Pooja aged 16 and 15 years old applying Mehendi on their hands. When asked, their mothers informed the team that applying Mehendi is their hobby. Both the parents shared that they are snake charmers and have 3 more sons. The next day the team went to their house to collect documents and found them applying turmeric paste on their faces and hands. Their mothers did not answer anything when asked and denied giving documents. She said that the girls would not go to school and the team must not interfere in their family matters.
The team informed Childline of suspicion of child marriage. The following day, Dewas Childline visited and found that child marriage was about to happen in the evening. The Childline team asked for an age or mark sheet or any paper based on which they could verify the age of the girl child. The family did not have any documents available to them. The family told that there is a tradition of getting the children married as soon as they hit puberty.
The family was persuaded by the team to not marry them off at such an early age and the marriage was stopped. The next day, Childline called the family to Dewas Police station and got the Panchnama made. The family was informed that marrying the boy before 21 and girls before 18 is a punishable offence.
After this incident, all the residents of the entire Nath Basti were made aware of the laws related to child marriage. They were explained how severely it can impact the children’s emotional, physical, and reproductive health. It took various sessions, multiple meetings with the community leaders and numerous rapport-building sessions with children to spread awareness and convince the community against child marriage.
Payal and Pooja got scarred after seeing so many unknown people coming to the house and meeting with the police. They both were given counselling and asked not to agree to get married before the age of 18. They both now study at home, participates in creative activities and teach younger children of the community.