Rowmari (Barpeta): The sun had just slipped behind the horizon when 39-year-old Bobildul Haque and his wife returned home from the paddy fields of Rowmari Char in Assam’s Barpeta district. Their feet were heavy with mud, their bodies exhausted after a long day’s work. In the fragile world of the char — the shifting sandbars of the Brahmaputra — evening brings not only darkness, but uncertainty.
But as they stepped inside their modest home, they realized that something was wrong.
Their eldest daughter, 14-year-old Rehena Khatun (name changed), was missing.
They asked their three younger children. The siblings said Rehena had stepped out in the afternoon, telling them she would return soon. She never did.
Panic set in. Bobildul ran from one neighbour to another, asking if anyone had seen her. One man said he had spotted the girl riding pillion on a motorcycle with a boy, heading towards nearby Mahmora Char.
After hours of searching and desperate enquiries, Bobildul confirmed what he had feared: his daughter had eloped with Saifiqul Islam from Mahmora Char.
Rehena, the eldest of four siblings, had dropped out of school a year earlier after floods wreaked havoc in the area.
Her story is not an isolated one. Across lower and central Assam’s char areas — especially in Barpeta, Bongaigaon, Dhubri, South Salmara, Darrang, Nagaon, and Goalpara — adolescent girls are dropping out of school and eloping or marrying before they turn 18. In these fragile landscapes, where land disappears overnight, childhood often disappears with it.
The Numbers Behind the Stories
According to the National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5, 2019–2021), 31.8 percent of women aged 20–24 in Assam were married before the age of 18, significantly higher than the national average of 23.3 percent.
District-level data from NFHS-5 reveal a troubling concentration of child marriage cases in Lower Assam. Dhubri records the highest prevalence in the state at 50.8 percent, followed by South Salmara Mancachar (44.7 percent) and Darrang (42.8 percent). Other districts with high prevalence rates include Barpeta (40.1 percent), Goalpara (41.8 percent), Bongaigaon (41.7 percent), and Nagaon (42.6 percent). Morigaon and other Lower Assam districts also record high levels.
A clear pattern emerges. Most of these districts contain large riverine char populations. Activists and teachers say this overlap is not accidental — it reflects structural vulnerability rooted in geography.
“The char areas are hotspots of child marriage. When education collapses, marriage becomes the default option,” said Rafiqul Islam, coordinator of Anchalik Gram Unnayan Parishad, who works in minority-dominated areas of Barpeta and Dhubri to curb child marriage.
Living on Land That Disappears
Flood and erosion are annual realities in Assam. For char dwellers, displacement is routine.
“Due to floods and erosion, we have to migrate from one place to another,” said 42-year-old Ainal Haque. “In my lifetime, I have changed my home three times. I was born at Dharmapur Char, which was washed away by the Brahmaputra. Then we moved to Sukhajhar — that too was swallowed by the river. Now we live in Rowmari.”
Each displacement disrupts children’s education.
“When we move, we have to change their schools. In new places, sometimes there is no school nearby. So they leave school. When they don’t go to school, they mix with boys and ultimately elope,” Haque said.
His words reflect a harsh reality. In char areas, floods do not simply damage crops; they erase entire villages.
During the monsoon months, floodwaters cut off villages for weeks. Roads disappear. New water channels form. Boats become the only mode of transport. For many children, especially girls, travelling several kilometres to school becomes impossible.
“In many char villages, there are no high schools within four to five kilometres,” said 57-year-old Muslimuddin, a teacher at Moamari ME School in Baghbor. “After missing classes for months due to floods, students lose the habit of going to school. Eventually, they drop out,” he said.
Once out of school, early marriage or elopement often follows.
“They have grown up seeing early marriage as normal in their communities. The desire for physical intimacy also plays a role. After puberty, adolescents undergo both mental and physical changes, which naturally lead to the development of such desires,” said Muslimuddin.
Crackdown and Its Limits
Arranged child marriages have declined significantly since the Assam government launched a crackdown in 2023 under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act (PCMA). The law defines child marriage as marriage involving girls under 18 and boys under 21. The state has adopted a strict legal approach, aiming to make Assam “child marriage-free” by 2026.
A 2025 report by Just Rights for Children titled “Tipping Point to Zero” noted that Assam recorded an 84 percent reduction in child marriages among girls and a 91 percent reduction among boys between roughly 2022 and 2025 — one of the steepest declines in the country.
“Child marriage has declined following the strict crackdown by the government in 2023. Now parents are afraid to organize the marriage of a girl before the age of 18 and a boy before 21,” said Alamin Haque, a leader of the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) and a resident of Baghbor.
However, while formally arranged child marriages may have reduced, elopements continue.
The practice has shifted form rather than disappeared.
Elopement: A Social Complication
“Now, when girls elope, parents try to bring them back, but due to taboo, this creates problems. Society is hesitant to accept them, and the practice continues covertly to some extent,” said Rafiqul Islam.
In conservative rural settings, if a girl spends time alone with a boy, it is often assumed that a sexual relationship has occurred. This stigma discourages families from bringing daughters back home, he said. “Marriage becomes the only socially acceptable solution.”
Economic hardship remains central.
“The first thing is economic,” Islam explained. “Financial conditions are very poor. Parents migrate for work and struggle daily for survival. They do not get time to monitor their children’s education. Due to low literacy, they also do not fully understand the harmful effects of child marriage.”
He added that certain religious interpretations also influence attitudes.
“Some believe that after puberty, marriage is acceptable. There is no fixed lower age in their understanding,” he said.
“Another misconception persists. Boys want to marry girls at an early age, thinking that if they marry very young girls, they will get a virgin bride. This is also another reason for the prevalence of child marriage,” he said.
A Cycle of Poverty and Tradition
Abida Khatun, 25, mirrors this cycle. Born in 2001, she was married in 2015 at the age of 14. She dropped out in Class V because the school was four kilometres away from her home, and her parents arranged her marriage.
“Our parents believe that once a girl attains puberty, she should be married,” she said softly.
Today, she is a mother of two.
Her story reflects how distance, poverty, and tradition combine to shape a girl’s fate. When schools are far and floods are frequent, education weakens. When education weakens, early marriage strengthens.
The Deeper Crisis
The crackdown has reduced openly arranged child marriages. Fear of arrest has changed behaviour. But structural drivers remain.
Recurrent floods and erosion continue. Poverty remains entrenched. Schools are distant or damaged. Transport is unreliable. Social norms are deeply rooted. Exposure to the outside world is limited.
In the char areas, the Brahmaputra does more than reshape land. It reshapes lives.
For families struggling to survive on fragile sandbars, marriage often feels like security. For girls like Rehena, it marks the quiet end of childhood.
“The light of education has not fully reached the char areas,” said Hamid Ali, another schoolteacher in Barpeta. “Until schools are accessible, until livelihoods improve, the problem will remain,” he said.
This report was produced under Population First’s Laadli Media Fellowship 2026.