Ending the practice of child marriages in Nepal: viewpoints and suggestions from children’s rights activists

The thesis aimed to answer the research question: ‘What are the possible interventions measures to prevent child marriages in Nepal?’ by analyzing six in-depth semi structured interviews of people working for children’s rights. The earlier studies of child marriages and discussions of children and human rights has been used to analyse the data. Child marriage is a practice that occurs across regions, cultures and religions which impacts the lives of the child brides and grooms and their children because of several adverse consequences including maternal death, poverty, and gender inequality. Some of the main causes of child marriages are poverty, gender discrimination, and weak law enforcement. The study found that strong enforcement of laws, illegalizing dowry, supporting poor families, keeping children in school, ending caste based discrimination, awareness about the legal and negative consequences of child marriage, the role of media and civil society, and mobilizing religious leaders are some of the prevention measures of child marriages. Thesis concluded that preventing child marriage is very challenging but achievable when multiple stakeholders coordinate, collaborate and work together genuinely. My findings corroborate with previous researches. However, it also has some new angle about the causes and prevention measures of child marriage in Nepal