UDAYAPUR, June 30: Ward child Protection and Promotion Sub-committee (WCPPSC), Udayapur was successful in stopping a child marriage in Rupatar on Wednesday.
A young couple of Tapli Rural Municipality-5, Rupatar was about to tie the knot on Wednesday when the sub-committee intervened. After finding out that the bride is not eligible for marriage, WCPPSC obstructed the wedding.
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Suraj Bahadur Khadka, 26, of Tapli-5, Kathare was getting married to a 16-year-old girl of the same village. Activists arrived in the middle of the wedding and urged the parents to stop the procedure saying the bride was too young for marriage. Locals widely supported the decision of WCPPSC as most of them had attended awareness programs related to early marriage and knew that it was against the law.
According to Mohan Bahadur Budhathoki, chairperson of the sub-committee, the family members of the groom were told to cancel the wedding earlier as the girl did not meet the age bar set by the law. Despite that, they continued with the preparations for the marriage ceremony. So, the activists were left with no other option than going to the wedding and obstructing it. WSPPSC has been time and again conducting awareness programs for the locals against child marriage. In fact, it has been running a campaign for curbing child marriage in the whole district. Wedding guests invited by the groom had to return home empty-handed after the marriage was cancelled. Parents of both the girl and the boy were convinced to marry off their children after the girl reaches an eligible age.
"At first it became really hard for us to convince the wedding guests who were not willing to return home without bride but we somehow managed to do it," said Budhathoki.
