Preventing child marriage to end... sad lullabies
(Baonghean.vn) - Dropping out of school, getting married and early marriage have been a problem for many years in mountainous districts. This problem becomes even more difficult after Tet, although many solutions have been proposed.
Concerns of schools
Nearly 2 weeks after the long Tet holiday, Thach Ngan Secondary School for Ethnic Minorities (Con Cuong) welcomed students back to school with a worry when 16 students were absent. Therefore, in parallel with stabilizing the study and accommodation for boarding students at the school, teachers began the journey to the village to persuade students to go to school.
“It was very hard,” said Mr. Pham Quoc Hoang, the school’s principal, when talking about “calling” students back to school.
Talking about this, teacher Hoang also shared the clips that teachers recorded while visiting each family to meet with parents and students. There was a case like Lo Thi Minh, when she heard the teacher coming, she ran away; another case like La Thi Hoa, even though the teacher came to her house and talked a lot with her family, she still could not encourage her to go to school with only one reason "she said she did not like going to school anymore". After more than a week of perseverance, up to now, 12 students have returned to school and the remaining 4 students are "at high risk of dropping out, including 3 female students and 1 male student, one of whom is only in 7th grade".
Thach Ngan Secondary School for Ethnic Minorities is a special school with many students from the Dan Lai ethnic minority. Last school year, the school had 7 students drop out, many of whom dropped out and got married before reaching the legal age of marriage.
Ms. Tran Thi Nam - a population official of Thach Ngan commune, said: "We have recorded 4 cases of early marriage and early childbirth in the area, all of whom are Dan Lai ethnic minority students. There is a case of a student in grade 9 who got pregnant while studying and was only discovered when she was about to give birth. In addition, there are some cases where students finished junior high school and then dropped out of school to work far away. Only when they were about to give birth did they find out about it when they returned to their locality."
According to the population officer of Thach Ngan commune, although the commune has taken many measures to propagate and mobilize every year, the most difficult thing in limiting the situation of child marriage is that most of the children leave their place of residence and get married and have children on their own. Therefore, by the time the local government finds out, it is too late.
In addition, due to customs and practices, ethnic minorities do not pay much attention to investing in their children's education. Many families even want their children to drop out of school to get married and work early to earn an income, so propaganda is difficult to reach the people.
After Tet and after the summer break is often the most sensitive time for schools, especially those in mountainous areas. The most worrying issue is the situation of students dropping out of school or taking time off to get married.
At Nga My Secondary Boarding School for Ethnic Minorities (Tuong Duong), every week, teacher Nguyen Trong Hao - the school's principal updates the list of students who have dropped out of school.
Each case of students absent from school is a different situation. In our school, the majority are still students of the O Du ethnic group in Vang Mon village.
We tried to persuade all these cases, but some students said they did not want to go to school, some students had families that did not care and did not cooperate with the school, some students went to work far away and “disappeared”, even the commune authorities did not know and could not contact them. In the cases of absenteeism, there were even cases of female students dropping out of school and getting married early.
Strengthening propaganda and mobilization
Con Cuong is one of the first localities in Nghe An to implement a project to prevent child marriage and incestuous marriage. However, this is still an extremely difficult task and difficult to completely limit.
In 2023 alone, the district had 28 cases of child marriage, with the youngest born in 2007, only 14 years old, mainly concentrated in communes such as Mon Son, Thach Ngan, Yen Khe, Chau Khe. In the statistical list, there are also cases where both husband and wife were underage but had an unwanted pregnancy.
Speaking more about the situation of child marriage in the district, Ms. Nguyen Hong Nhung - Head of the Population Department of the Con Cuong District Health Center, said: “We regularly conduct propaganda and mobilization work in each village and organize many direct counseling sessions for students at schools. At the same time, we coordinate with relevant departments and branches such as the Ethnic Minorities Department and the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee to participate in propaganda and mobilization work. Although people's awareness has changed, it will take a lot of time to completely prevent child marriage, because in some places it has become deeply ingrained in people's customs."
Child marriage has been and is a major problem among ethnic minorities across the country, including Nghe An. To gradually limit and end this problem, since 2015, the Prime Minister has approved the Project "Reducing child marriage and incestuous marriage in ethnic minority areas in the period 2015 - 2025".
In Nghe An, there is also a Project "Reducing child marriage and incestuous marriage in ethnic minority areas in the period 2015 - 2020".
Recently, the Department of Population, the Provincial Ethnic Minorities Committee and localities have coordinated in promoting the prevention of child marriage. However, the results have been very limited.
In Ky Son district, a hot spot for child marriage, statistics show that there are more than 100 cases in the district each year.early marriageFor example, in 2023, after the Lunar New Year holiday, the whole district had 154 junior high school students in Ky Son who were out of school, of which 70 went to work for a company, 57 got married, mainly concentrated in the age group of 14-15.
This year, after Tet, the situation of dropping out of school continued to occur. Among them, there were at least 6 cases of early marriage. This stems from cultural practices and concepts of marriage as well as gender inequality that is "deeply rooted" in the lives of our people.
In addition, the natural conditions and living conditions of the people are still difficult, the poverty rate is high, etc., so children do not want to go to school, prefer to work and get married early. In recent years, the fact that school-age children have early access to conflicting information from social networks has made propaganda more difficult.
Since 2021, the mountainous district of Ky Son has issued a plan to implement the "Project to reduce child marriage and consanguineous marriage in ethnic minority areas for the period 2021 - 2025".
At the same time, to limit this situation, in parallel with propaganda and mobilization work, the district has also had deterrent solutions such as requiring parents and students to sign a commitment; handling administrative measures to handle cases of early marriage.
The work of preventing child marriage and incestuous marriage is also receiving attention and focus from the Population sector.
Mr. Nguyen Ba Tan - Head of the Provincial Department of Population and Family Planning said: "Early marriage and incestuous marriage leave many consequences for families and society, seriously affecting the race, intellectual development, and population quality. Moreover, early marriage causes loss of opportunities for education and employment, reduces population quality, and the health of mothers and children."
In the coming time, we will continue to promote the dissemination of legal regulations related to marriage and family, early marriage and child marriage; clarify the consequences, harms and implications caused by this problem.
In addition, the sector will coordinate with relevant departments and sectors to effectively implement projects in the National Target Program on Socio-Economic Development in Ethnic Minorities and Mountainous Areas, 2021-2025 period, contributing to improving the lives, socio-economy, and raising awareness for ethnic minorities. At the same time, improve the effectiveness and efficiency of state management and strictly enforce the law in the prevention and combat of child marriage.
