Girls at risk of early marriage, survey reveals

COLOMBO: Economic difficulties from the ongoing currency collapse has increased the risk of girls being driven into early marriage, as families become poorer, a survey conducted by Sri Lanka Red Cross Society and the International Federation of Red Cross said.

Respondents were asked whether the families would consider early marriage in the next 3 to 6 months if the economic situation did not improve, Economy Next reported.

“Of the total, 51 percent of the households said there is an increased risk for girls to get married before they turned 18,” said Sinha Wickremesekara, a member of the research group.

The ‘Sri Lanka Complex Emergency Needs Assessment Report’ covered 2,871 households in 11 districts and 300 estate sector households. The researchers also held focused group discussions.

Sri Lanka is going through the worst currency crisis in the history of the island’s intermediate regime central bank. Sri Lanka’s rupee which is soft-pegged to the US dollar (flexible exchange rate) collapses whenever money is printed to keep down rates artificially and drive up credit without deposits.The rupee collapsed from 200 to 363.38 to the US dollar after two years of money printing and the country also defaulted on its foreign debt.

Inflation reached 69.8 percent in the year to September, sharply reducing the real value of salaries.

The survey had also found that 50 percent of the households have reduced their intake of as meat and fish while 11 percent of the households have completely stopped animal based food as prices rose.

Chicken is now around 1,400 rupees a kilogram up from around 480 rupees two year ago.

Food prices are up about 90 percent over a year.

Families are also cutting down on health care, Wickremesekara said,

Fifty-eight percent of the households claimed their health conditions have worsened since January 2022, and 30 percent faced difficulties in obtaining health facilities in the last three months.

“We were able to find that, in all three sectors of the survey, the medicine prices are high and the transport cost is high,” Wickremesekara said.

“Most of the time they spend a higher cost in transport but they don’t get all the medicine from the hospitals.

“If they get a prescription to buy medicine from a pharmacy, rather than going for the mentioned high price brands they go for the low price brands. They said they have also reduced the dosage of intakes of medicines per day in order to afford the medicine.”