India stopped short of co- sponsoring a first-of-its-kind United Nations resolution on eliminating "early marriage" due to a lack of greater legal clarity, the External Affairs Ministry has said.
The Resolution on 'Strengthening efforts to prevent and eliminate child, early and forced marriage: Challenges, achievements, best practices and implementation gaps', was adopted by consensus at the 24th Session of the Human Rights Council held between September 9-27, 2013, in Geneva, Switzerland.
India supported the resolution, and even made a strong statement in its favour, but refused to join it as a co- sponsor.
"The resolution calls for preventing and eliminating child and forced marriages since their existence goes against the principles of human rights. India has been completely supportive of this call. However, the resolution also calls for preventing and eliminating 'early marriage'.
"The concept of 'early marriage' is nowhere defined and it is debatable whether early marriages can be 'eliminated' if such a marriage is above the legal age for marriage as per the law of the land, i.E. 18 years in the case of India.
"Consequently, there was need for greater legal clarity for such a term and its usage before it could be co-sponsored by India," the MEA said in its response to an RTI query.
Co-sponsoring would have meant endorsement of certain terms, on the legal implications of which there was no clarity and which may well have contradicted our own laws, the Ministry said in explanation for its stand.
The RTI petitioner, Venkatesh Nayak, who works for Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), had sought information on how MEA had arrived at the decision to not co- sponsor the resolution.
"Co-sponsorship would normally mean that we endorse all aspects of the resolution without reservation," the reply said.
