DANG: The Lumbini Province Police Office Dang has initiated a campaign for prevention and minimization of child marriage.

The Province Police has launched a 15-day campaign beginning today for minimizing the under-age marriage, citing this has been taking place throughout the province in recent days, Province Police Office Dang’s Senior Superintendent Raj Kumar Baidawar said.

According to him, all the police offices in the 12 districts of the province will reach to the targeted groups and run programmes aimed at prevention and control of child marriage, effective implementation of the existing laws against child marriage through joint collaboration with the general public, local levels, media, civil society and the stakeholders.

SSP Baidawar said the programme has been started with the objective of raising public awareness that child marriage is illegal, of taking legal action against those involved in arranging the child marriage and of enhancing collaboration for the police campaign.

The campaign will run from today till November 13.

Forty-nine cases of child marriage have been reported to the police in the Lumbini Province in the period of the last three fiscal years. Police said nine cases of child marriage were reported in fiscal year 2019/20, twenty-two in fiscal year 2018/19 and 18 cases of child marriage in fiscal year 2017/18. RSS