Overview

• Just Rights for Children’s “Tipping Point to Zero” reports a 69% drop in child marriages of girls and a 72% drop for boys over three years, based on fieldwork in 757 villages and 1,042 frontline respondents.
• Assam posts the steepest declines—84% for girls and 91% for boys—with the study pointing to a zero‑tolerance approach, strict enforcement, and incentives such as the Nijut Moina 2.0 scheme; JRC announced a ‘Champions of Change’ award for the Chief Minister.
• Respondents identify poverty or poor financial condition as the dominant driver of child marriage, with additional factors tied to safety concerns, education gaps, and restrictive norms.
• Awareness of the national Bal Vivah Mukt Bharat campaign is near universal in surveyed areas, and arrests and FIRs are cited as the strongest deterrents, alongside growing comfort with reporting suspected cases.
• Official SRS data show 2.1% of 2023 weddings involved a girl child as bride, with higher rural prevalence at 2.5% versus 1.2% in urban areas and uneven trends including increases in West Bengal and Jharkhand.