Stakeholders’ meeting on prevention of child marriages held in Sonitpur

OUR CORRESPONDENT

TEZPUR: An awareness meeting with various stakeholders on prevention of child marriages in the district was held at the new conference hall of the Deputy Commissioner’s office on Wednesday, organized by Sonitpur district administration in collaboration with District Child Protection Unit, Sonitpur.

Chairing the meeting, Deputy Commissioner Deba Kumar Mishra called upon all stakeholders present in the meeting to continue to work in line with the Government of Assam’s decision to initiate legal action against all those found involved in promoting this social evil. He urged the need to create social awareness at the grassroots level in order to uproot this evil from the society. He also appealed to the people to report any such activity at the nearest police station or to the GP secretaries of their respective areas.

Nearly 300 persons, including various stakeholders such as Circle Officers, BDOs, officials of Labour, Health departments, officials of Special Adoption Agency, child protection agencies, District Legal Services Authority, Gaon Panchayat secretaries, Tea Associations, NGOs, OCs and ICs of various police stations, priests and others attended the awareness meeting. Also present in the meeting were Chairperson, ZP, Dolly Surin, and CEO, ZP, Karabi Saikia Karan.

District Child Protection Officer, Sonitpur, Anjali Arya gave a presentation on the child protection mechanism, roles and responsibilities of Child Marriage Prohibition Officer (CMPO) to the Gaon Panchayats secretaries who are designated as CMPO and laid stress on the need to empower the Block Level Child Protection Committee (BLCPC) & Village Level Child Protection Committee (VLCPC) in the respective Development Blocks and Gaon Panchayats.

Also Read:  CHILD MARRIAGE: Mutual agreements used as tools to evade law

Also Watch: