Early marriage: Victims pin the blame on gadgets

KOKILA KC

KATHMANDU: Saru Tamang (18) from Rasuwa district decided to marry Raju Lama-22 from same district a year ago while she was studying in Grade VIII in a government school in her own district.

Lama had given her a mobile set to talk to him. He had also promised to provide her all the luxury of life but all his promises were in vain after their arrival to Kathmandu.

Tamang, who is working as a labourer in house construction sites in Kathmandu, said she was attracted towards Lama while they started talking over the phone and ran away from home without informing anyone with a dream of good future in Kathmandu.

She stated that as soon as they came to Kathmandu, she found that Lama had married her just to have physical relation therefore when she denied for it, he used to beat her.

“I could not tolerate the suffering thus I left him and began to do some work to eke out a living,” she said adding, “I ruined my own future.”

Rubi Khadka (name changed), a plus-two student in Kathmandu, had to marry her boyfriend at the age of 17 after she was pregnant due to physical relation with him.

Khadka said, “I passed my SLC with good score, therefore I got a new mobile phone from my parents. After I got mobile phone, I started getting calls from my boyfriend and I was also serious about him.”

She said she had to run away with her boyfriend after she became pregnant. “I have not yet completed my Plus-Two yet due to early marriage and my young child.”

Lama and Khadka are just representatives of hundreds of girls who have ruined their own future because of the use of such electronic gadgets at early age. Babita Basnet, president, Media Advocacy Group and a women right activist, reaffirmed that the cases of early marriage was increasing due to use of electronic gadgets such as mobile phones.

She said, “Earlier parents used to marry off their daughters at a young age but these days young girls and boys find their love partners through chatting on mobile phones, social networking sites such as facebook, gmail and other mediums and try to legalise their relationship through marriage without knowing its impact on their life.”

Suresh Man Shrestha, secretary, Ministry of Education, also noted that due to the use of electronic gadgets such as mobile phones, dropout rate of school students is increasing. He said that after chatting over mobile phone, some boys and girls in Lamjung district left their studies and ran away from home for marriage recently.

He said, “The use of gadgets such as mobile phone, motorbikes and other things have been increasing school students’ dropout rate therefore it should be banned within schools by preparing directives.”