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Nepal has faced many problems in modern society from its old traditions. Some of these include blind faith, discrimination on gender and caste, etc. Among these problems comes child marriage. Child marriage is when a minor under the age of consent is married. Child marriage used to be a common practice in Nepal decades ago and has been illegal for over fifty years, but people still refuse to abide by the law and marry off their children, or the children themselves runaway and marry.

Though it is a world-wide issue and organizations and committees are trying to put it to an end globally, the older generations are still not aware of the situation or the children are not given proper counseling about the consequences and run off to marry early. In Nepal, the rate of child marriage has lessened by over sixty percent in the last 3 decades, but even as of now the rates of child marriage occurring in Nepal is one of the highest in Asia itself.

Child marriage is a prevailing problem, but what makes it worse is that once someone under the age of consent who is young and should be studying is married, they usually are deprived of education and suffer to keep their lives together. Not only that, kids are also not completely mature and definitely not ready to marry and handle a life. Sometimes it even destroys them emotionally and they have to suffer for their remaining lifetime.

Even after considering their emotional state and whether or not they are ready to marry and lead a life, another massive issue is that childbirth and domestic violence usually happens in child marriage. When a girl gets pregnant before becoming an adult, her body will not be developed or matured enough to deliver a child, and during pregnancy they face a high risk of malnutrition, underdevelopment, and might face financial problems. This will not only cause her chances of death to increase, but will also ruin her childhood.

Every year, over 12 million cases of child marriage arise, a third of them being girls under the age of fifteen. And in most of the cases, it is reported that the women were left alone as the groom was usually older and went for work or ran off. This caused the women to be trapped in poverty, having to undergo the physical and mental burden alone, miss their education and be deprived of the care that they needed.

These are barely half of the problems faced when child marriage occurs. And for that reason, hundreds of organizations all around the world are enforcing laws to stop child marriage, aware nations and underdeveloped areas regarding its effects, to enforce laws to prevent child marriage, and to give children the education they need as well as helping those who have undergone child marriage. That's why the people also need to work together to aware others of the consequences, educate children and have them focus on positive activities through their childhood and youth, and say no to child marriage.

Altogether, prevention of child marriage is not just enforced laws, it’s to remove the problems in society, remove the negative thoughts from youth’s minds, prevent the young from destroying their future and lead them to a bright and better one instead where everyone is equal and able to handle a life with a family of their own. Even as regular citizens and children, we can help prevent the issue by preventing early marriage ourselves, and can make our friends aware of the issues. Not only us, our school, society, and workplace can start hosting programs and events where we do dramas or presentations on the topic and how to prevent it from occurring.