Launch Of Pre-marital Counselling Cell In Bengaluru For Single Women Who Are Forced To Marry

Bengaluru gets its pre-marital counselling cell for single women who are forced to marry, without their consent. 

The Vanitha Sahaya Vani in Bengaluru launched a pre-marital counselling cell on Thursday for single women who are pressurized by their families to get married.  This cell is particularly for the aid of women who are being forced into marriage.

According to Rani Shetty, Coordinator of Vanitha Sahaya Vani, the number of women calling them for help has doubled in the last three years. Most of these cases are of young girls who seek help when their families persuade them for marrying against their will. Some girls do not want to marry because of previous traumatic experiences in their family. “One girl didn’t want to get married because her elder sister had committed suicide because of dowry harassment,” said Ms Shetty.

Marriage is seen as an indispensable part of a girl’s life and many families are in a rush to marry off their daughters at the ‘right marriageable age’. Many young women want to concentrate on academics and their career instead of getting married. However, this notion is incomprehensible to their families and youngsters often find it difficult to explain their priorities to their parents.  This is where pre-marital counselling cell seeks to intervene and make an effort in bridging this generation gap.

It is important that young people become self-sufficient before they enter into an alliance of marriage. Equally important is that people get married for the right reasons and not under parental and societal pressure. If a marriage is forced, it is bound to fail at some point of time.

The pre-marital cell will serve as a platform to initiate dialogues between families about marriage and related issues and problems that women encounter and also help in bringing to focus the aspirations and challenges of young women today.

The cell is located at the Police Commissioner’s Office on Infantry Road in Bengaluru and was inaugurated by the City Police Commissioner, N.S Megharikh. Women can either visit the cell with their complaints and issues or, call the helpline numbers.

The counselling sessions of the cell will be held on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

The helpline numbers are: 1091, 22943225, 22943224

Cover image via Shutterstock

Ananya Chakraborty

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