Ranchi: Jharkhand, infamous for witchcraft killings, has the highest percentage of underage girls getting married, according to the Union Home Ministry's latest demographic sample survey. According to the survey conducted by the office of the registrar general and census commissioner of the home ministry, the percentage of girls marrying before adulthood in Jharkhand is 5.8 per cent.
In the village of Jharkhand, the childhood of daughters is being played the most. Here 7.3 per cent of the girls were married under the age of 18, while in the city, the case is up to three per cent. The Sample Registration System (SRS) statistical report includes estimates of various demographic, fertility and mortality based on data collected through one of the world's largest demographic surveys, covering about 8.4 million sample populations.
Jharkhand and West Bengal are the two states in the country where more than half of women are married before the age of 21. While 54.9 per cent of girls get married before the age of 21 in West Bengal, the figure in Jharkhand is 54.6 per cent as against the national average of 29.5 per cent, the survey said. Meanwhile, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 32 people were killed for practising witchcraft in Jharkhand in 2015, 27 in 2016, 19 in 2017, 18 in 2018 and 15 each in 2019 and 2020.
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