After thoroughly researching the concerns of various South Asian countries and based on the recent hearings at the United Nations; I have concluded if the countries were or were not in compliance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The countries under evaluation were India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh; and the issues of concern were education, child labor, child marriage, healthcare, and street children. The Convention on the Rights of the Child is an agreement to fix the current status of children's lifestyles, and to enhance their lives to a more fulfilling extent. It consists of fifty-four articles prohibiting discrimination, and other forms of injustice to children. The four countries were evaluated for their compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Child marriage and the rise of street children are of concern in India. Child marriages started in the Middle Ages and were done so that children aren't abducted, raped, sold into prostitution, or because the family needs money. In 1998 fifty-six percent of children married before the age of fifteen. Child marriage is the most common in the Northern states where forty percent of the population marries as children. In 1978, laws were put in place to curb child marriage. They rose the legal female marriage age to eighteen years old. Men found offending these laws face a jail sentence and a fine of 1006 rupees, women are only fined. Child marriages cause social problems such as lowering women's rights, increasing birthrate and illiteracy, lowers life expectancy, and increases infant mortality. India is in compliance with Articles 12 and 31 which basically state that a child can have an opinion to being married. The country's current plan is to have couples register with authorities before they are able to be recognized as married by the law. They are also encouraging women who are encountered with being sold to other men, to come forward.
