By Nita Bhalla
NEW DELHI Feb 9 (Reuters) – India’s development is
being slowed by discriminatory practices against women such as
child marriage, which stifle their potential to contribute to
growth, South African peace campaigner Archbishop Desmond Tutu
said.
“India is doing fantastically. I mean they are complaining
about seven percent GDP growth. Imagine if you then enlisted the
participation of 50 percent of the population. Women. Imagine
what it would be,” Tutu told Reuters late on Wednesday.
“I think that India is poised to become a very significant
player but, that role would be greatly, greatly enhanced, when
women are given their proper place.”
Tutu, 80, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for speaking out
against white minority rule in South Africa.
Now, as chairman of The Elders — a group of prominent
people dedicated to addressing humanitarian issues — he is
spearheading a global movement called “Girls Not Brides” aimed
at ending child marriage.
Gender experts say a girl under the age of 18 is married
every three seconds — that’s 10 million each year — often
without consent and sometimes to a much older man, before she is
mentally or sexually ready for such a relationship.
The practice is most prevalent in Africa, the Middle East
and South Asia, despite laws in most countries banning it.
In a rapidly modernising country, tightly bound by
traditional patriarchal views, Indian women face a plethora of
threats from sexual violence, dowry murders, discrimination in
health, education and land rights as well as child marriage.
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