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‘Say no to child marriage’ campaign launched in Madhya Pradesh by e-volunteers from 15 districts

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Senior Correspondent

NewsBits.in

BHOPAL: E-volunteers from 15 districts of Madhya Pradesh including Bhopal on Friday launched a ‘say no to child marriage’ campaign at the end of a daylong workshop.

The workshop was organized by Vikas Samvad in partnership with UNICEF, CRY, TDH and Digital Democracy. In all, 65 e-volunteers from 15 districts participated in the workshop.

Speaking at the event Sachin Jain of Vikas Samvad said that child marriage is an issue which needs higher level advocacy and engagement of political leaders and policy makers so that the society says a strong no to this challenging trend, which is still prevalent. 

Anil Gulati, Communication Specialist UNICEF, Madhya Pradesh said that child marriage is violation of child rights and impacts the lives of children in Madhya Pradesh negatively.

He added that prevalence of child marriage is decreasing but progress on ending this practice is slow. In child marriage, not only the rights of the individuals involved get violated but their unpreparedness to protect against any violation makes them more vulnerable to further exploitation.

He added that e-volunteers with their skills of social media can help make this issue visible, help create a positive narrative on the issue.

Dr Vandana Bhatia, UNICEF Health Specialist spoke on the impact of child health due to child marriage and early pregnancy. She added that it is important to look at health aspects linked to child marriage.

Sujan Sarkar, PME Officer UNICEF India, shared state and district wise data of child marriage quoting National Family Health Survey. 

Rakesh Malviya of Vikas Samvad conducted the programme and briefed the participants on how they can together form a group to drive the agenda of saying no to child marriage. 

Sachin Srivastava Social media expert trained these e-volunteers on intricacies of twitter, and how to use hashtag and how to drive campaign on social media. The participants tweeted live using hashtag #SayNoToChildMarriage, shared videos and pictures of the event and now will be using various case studies from ground to bring it to social media.