Meghalaya fights Early Marriages

Meghalaya, a land with amazing beauty, vibrant culture and rich flora and fauna has impressed everyone over the years but apart from tall hills and crystal clear waterfalls, the matrilineal state has been facing a common challenge of early marriages and teenage pregnancy for long.
As this twin issue continues to haunt the state for ages, now different communities, societies and groups are coming together to protect the young children and improve their lives by working together to eradicate the problem of early marriages and teenage pregnancy in Meghalaya.
This week, we caught up with Naba Bhattacharjee, the President of the Central Puja Committee, Meghalaya and a prominent citizen of Shillong to hear to hear his thoughts on this sensitive issue.
Bhattacharjee said that instances of early marriages existed centuries back but different movements in older times have laid a great emphasis on the drawbacks of these issues and now the instances have come down drastically.
He also pointed out that the situation has improved greatly and the teenagers themselves are realizing the fallacies of these issues as teenage pregnancy and early marriages have a lot of complications while laying great emphasis on education saying when children do not study, many a time parents think they should get their children married which is wrong
While the twin challenges of early marriages and teenage pregnancy continues to exist in Meghalaya, one thing is sure that Meghalaya is heading towards eliminating the problems as different stakeholders are spearheading the movement together to make the lives of our youths better.

[@ShillongChronicles]

Meghalaya fights Early Marriages