In Telangana State, it is evident that traditions and social norms, economic insecurity, lack of access to secondary education and social pressure are the primary drivers of child marriages.

Traditions, social norms and beliefs:

• ‘Higher the education, higher the dowry’ is the strong belief among most of the poor families in Telangana State.
• If the girl is well-educated, getting an equally qualified boy is quite difficult. In addition, meeting the cost of higher education for girls is also one of the challenges and hence parents are opting for early marriages where the age of the girl has lesser priority.
• The next important driving factor is consanguineous marriage, mainly to protect the ancestral property, strengthen the kinships as well as political power within the caste structure.
• In this context, the age of the girl is not of much importance and the only criteria is the biological maturity of the girl.
• In this scenario, parents are performing child marriages under pressure from grandparents. In few communities, performing child marriage is a routine customary practice.
• There are certain social norms, for instance parents prefer to get their daughter’s married before their son’s marriage. Similarly, death of a family member must precede a girl’s marriage. In such a scenario also, age of the girl is not taken into consideration.
• There is a belief among the rural communities that higher the education, higher the dowry. Due to this, few parents prefer to get their daughters married off as and when they get a good bridegroom and they don’t want to send their girl children for higher education.
• If the family has more number of girl children, irrespective of their young age, parents opt for child marriages and want to be free from responsibilities. These are the key driving factors classified under traditions, social norms and beliefs.

Intergenerational poverty:

• The cycle of intergenerational poverty also contributes to child marriages. Families with economic insecurity (because of no or less dependable income/ assets) prefer child marriages.
• For example, in Mahabub Nagar district, where drought is more common, parents from poor families migrate to faraway places, for example to Maharashtra and Gujarat for livelihoods.
• In such families, to avoid the risks associated with leaving the young girls behind with grandparents, parents prefer child marriages. If both the parents are illiterate, in general their awareness levels are low, and they are unable to understand the consequences of child marriages. Hence, child marriages are common among such families. This factor is again linked to poverty.

Lack of access to education:

• Lack of access to secondary education is another top most important issue behind child marriages.
• In specific geographical areas where secondary education is not accessible, parents don’t want to keep girl children unmarried for long in the family.
• Instead of engaging girl children into other household and livelihood activities, parents prefer to marry off girl children.
• This is also to avoid male harassment within the school and prevent girls from being harassed while commuting to school or their workplace.
• Lack of transportation to reach secondary schooling, lack of or poor sanitation facilities in secondary schools are also driving factors behind child marriages.
• Sometimes, the academic failure of a girl child influences her aspirations about higher education negatively. In such circumstances, she is more likely to drop out from school and alternatively leads parents to prepare for her marriage.