Policewomen will tour interiors of the coastal areas of North 24-Parganas and interact with schoolchildren, explaining to them how to tell a good touch from a bad and resist child marriage, officers said.
“A team called ‘Police Didi’ will be set up. The members will meet girls between 14 and 16 years across 11 police station areas in North 24-Parganas,” a senior officer said.
The members will explain to the young girls in an informal setting how to pursue their dreams without being married off prematurely.
“We will try and avoid formal interactions in schools, when people are invited to deliver speeches and the entire event is given the look of a formal function. Children don’t tend to open up in such settings,” the officer said.
“Instead, Police Didi members will meet the girls in their localities. Civic volunteers, mostly residents, will help in building the bridge.”
The two districts of North and South 24-Parganas account for nearly 30 per cent of trafficking cases in West Bengal. The National Crime Records Bureau, in its Crime in India report, said the number of cases registered under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act in 2021 was 1,050, up by 34 per cent compared with the 2020 figure. That means an average of three cases of child marriage were registered daily in 2021. The actual figures are likely to be much more as a large number of child marriage go unreported.
The police said they have intervened and stopped many cases of child marriage, but that happens only when information reaches them.
According to the state commission for protection of child rights, North and South 24-Parganas recorded the maximum number of complaints of child marriage since the outbreak of Covid and the subsequent loss of income of countless number of people.
Commission officials said that in most cases the parents wanted to get their teenage daughters married off to reduce the financial load on the family or the girls themselves would run away in search of a better future.
“The members of Police Didi will be trained to win the confidence of teenagers. These cops will first hear the problems and then offer realistic solutions,” an officer said.
“The members will give their phone numbers to the teenagers. Often, a young girl feels intimidated to call up a police station and report an incident. She can instead call up a member of Police Didi.”