A Sindoor at 13: The Tragedy of Child Marriage in Telangana
- Neha Kumari
- Aug 2
- 4 min read
Updated: Aug 3
A girl at the age of 13 should be concentrating on her schoolwork, drawing twee sketches in notebooks and laughing with her friends at the school lunch table.
She should be in school uniform not sindoor at 13 years of age.
A heart-breaking story in Telangana related the case of a young girl who was married off to a 40-year old man, she was not supposed to lead the life that she had to, she was not supposed to have the dreams that she was never supposed to pursue.
This is not how things used to be. This took place here, now - in 2025.
Stolen Childhood
The girl does not have her name yet in a mass release, but her account is already reverberating through news social media, newspapers, and dinner tables in horror. She was not even a teenager yet, she was 13 still a child.
Not that she should attend school and study to take board exams in some years time, no, she was made into a bride and given to a man twice the age she is.
This was not, however, a celebration, but a tragedy that was disguised as rituals and traditions.
The freedom, security, and purity of a girl were sold in the name of the family honour and social codes in the pretext of family honour and associated social aspects.
The Ugly Face of the Tradition
Child marriage still occurs in most areas in rural India, but not because no laws prohibit it, since no one tries to punish it by word or deed.
Family and relatives can be easily brought under societal, financial affliction or backward thinking that a girl is a burden until she is given away.
There are hushed comments in this village of Telangana that the family may have been tempted by the financial status and perhaps even coerced by the dictates of caste system.
Worse still, there were individuals who were part of the wedding, no one stood up to say, this is not right.
People were aware of it. Nobody prevented it.
The Law and the Reality
The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 has clearly indicated that to be legally married off at least a girl is supposed to be reaching the age of 18 years. Nevertheless, more than 1.5 million Indian girls less than the age of 18 are married annually.
Age of consent is merely a number as long as the society keeps aiming its head away.
What is represented by this incident is a vicious divide between law and lived reality. Though there have been campaigns regarding awareness, there are loopholes.
The marriage is undertaken hushed-hush fashion in villages many times even without registering them and inaccessible to the authorities. And whereby so much of these marriages are reported, justice is deferreday, foiled.
The Mental Happy-Hour Fee
But on top of the law, there is an even greater injury, an emotional and psychological scarring of a child.
When a girl is married off at the age of 13 she is not only deprived of education, she is denied the right to speak, to have any free agency, to even be a child.
It has been found out that early brides find themselves vulnerable to acts of domestic violence, early pregnancy and in most cases continuously distressed emotionally.
Their ambitions are smothered by the need to work at tasks that they really cannot stand.
Imagine yourself at the age of 13 and you wake up next to a guy who may be old enough to be your father. That is not a marriage, that is institutionalised abuse.
Where Do We Go?
This is a case of Telangana that should not be forgotten. Instead of dwindling as a couple of headlines that go viral, it should not fly off into ignorance. It ought to become the impetus to actual, grass-roots change.
Agencies should move with much speed - to save the girl (if the process has not been completed with her).
They should also put all those involved under arrest, including the groom, the men and women who guarded the girl and the authorities who facilitated the illegal wedding.
What we need, however, is more than punishment, it is prevention.
Such tragedies can be detected and prevented at the early stage through awareness campaigns in the rural environment in general, the safe reporting systems by the minors in particular, community watch who are closely examining the crimes being committed, and a well-established school system.
Final Thought
No child should be deprived of her future in the name of culture. a sindoor would be sacred to many but when it is applied on the forehead of 13 year old, the sanctity of the same is lost- it is no more a symbol of divinity but a symbol of injustice.
This girl belongs in a classroom not in a kitchen. Instead of dreaming of being a teacher, a doctor, a pilot her age should be 14 not a mother.
Shall we not turn away?
So shall we not be quiet.
Silence is complicity and this 13-year old deserves better than all of us.
📅 By News Anek Digital Desk | August 2, 2025
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