Yvonne?Ba­boolal

The top­ic of child mar­riage was on every­body's lips in Gand­hi Vil­lage.Res­i­dent Brown Ram­sawak de­scribed it as "statu­to­ry rape." He was lim­ing in Roop­nar­ine's Bar with vil­lage chi­ro­prac­tor, Gan­gas­ingh Bridge­lal.

Oth­er res­i­dents the T&T Guardian met in the qui­et vil­lage said they were shocked and dis­turbed to hear this was still hap­pen­ing in the coun­try.Some said it was a tra­di­tion of their fa­thers that is no longer com­mon and if it does hap­pen, it is usu­al­ly among the low­er in­come groups.

The peo­ple of Gand­hi Vil­lage were shocked as any­one else to hear that child mar­riage was ac­tu­al­ly still hap­pen­ing at present in T&T.One of the clus­ter of for­mer rice and sug­ar­cane vil­lages around the Oropouche La­goon in south Trinidad set­tled by the chil­dren of in­den­tured In­di­ans, Gand­hi Vil­lage is a pre­dom­i­nant­ly Hin­du area.

Some de­scribed it as a mi­ni repli­ca of In­dia.The vil­lage, orig­i­nal­ly called Cooliewood, was changed to Gand­hi Vil­lage by for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams af­ter res­i­dents re­quest­ed it.A white stat­ue of In­di­an free­dom fight­er Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi, pro­tec­tive­ly en­closed by a fence, stands in the mid­dle of the vil­lage as its show­piece.

Every­one was talk­ing about child mar­riage when the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed be­cause it is a Hin­du cus­tom now un­der se­vere at­tack by cit­i­zens. Un­der the Hin­du Mar­riage Act, par­ents can mar­ry off a 14-year-old girl.

A num­ber of pub­lic per­son­al­i­ties re­li­gious groups, NGOs and in­di­vid­u­als are now speak­ing out against what they are de­scrib­ing as child mar­riage, in­clud­ing Arch­bish­op Joseph Har­ris, for­mer in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor He­len Dray­ton and even Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

Sat Ma­haraj, pres­i­dent of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha, said the last child mar­riage in T&T was per­formed two years ago.

The bac­cha­nal be­gan af­ter T&T's hu­man rights record was ap­praised by the Uni­ver­sal Pe­ri­od­ic Re­view in Gene­va and there was a call to out­law child mar­riage, among oth­er things.

T&T's re­port was de­liv­ered by the coun­try's am­bas­sador to the UN, Eden Charles. Calls are al­so be­ing made lo­cal­ly to up­date the Mus­lim Mar­riage and Di­vorce Act, which al­lows for a 12-year-old girl to be mar­ried, and the Oris­sa Mar­riage Act, which gives 15 as the mar­riage age for girls and 18 for boys.

In Roop­nar­ine's bar, Ram­sawak and Bridge­lal were hav­ing a sober dis­cus­sion on the top­ic around a ta­ble.

"That used to ex­ist many years ago," Brown said.

They de­fend­ed the an­cient cus­tom.

"Long time par­ents nev­er keep a girl child in the house for long. They mar­ry them to pre­vent them from do­ing wrong things (for­ni­cat­ing).

"But this is the mod­ern world. This is not hap­pen­ing any­more. If that hap­pen­ing now, it is statu­to­ry rape," Ram­sawak said, pas­sion­ate­ly.

"I am very both­ered. I don't know of any such cas­es. At that young age to go through all that. These things not sup­posed to hap­pen. When you are 18, you can go on your own (mar­ry)."

Bridge­lal, 61, who said he was a Pen­te­costal, said the "el­ders in the vil­lage are very dis­turbed by the re­ports of child mar­riage in T&T, adding: "We would nev­er ap­prove that."

Not far away, Khem­raj Boodram, 54, and his three sons, con­struc­tion work­ers, were build­ing a house for some­one on a hot, silent street.

"Child mar­riage not go­ing on here," Boodram, tak­ing a break, said. "We were now talk­ing about this.

"When I hear this on the news, I said I won­der is these peo­ple crazy. Noth­ing like that ever hap­pened here since I was born."

Andy Roop­nar­ine, 39, pres­i­dent of the Rad­ha Kr­ish­na Mandir in Gand­hi Vil­lage, and his fa­ther, Kissoon, own­er of the bar, emerged from its dark­ened in­te­ri­or to add their two cents worth to the con­tro­ver­sial top­ic.

Kissoon, iden­ti­fy­ing him­self as an as­sis­tant teacher for 27 years, said child mar­riage oc­curred dur­ing the days of in­den­ture­ship for eco­nom­ic and so­cial rea­sons but the law nev­er re­al­ly came in­to ef­fect.

"It's not true that this is hap­pen­ing in this gen­er­a­tion."

Roop­nar­ine said child mar­riage was no longer a com­mon prac­tice and if it oc­ca­sion­al­ly oc­curred, it was more among the poor­er class­es.

"Since I know my­self I have nev­er seen it in the vil­lage."

Kissoon dis­put­ed the no­tion that child mar­riage when it oc­curred in the old days was statu­to­ry rape.

"It was not statu­to­ry rape. Long time, the par­ents used to put the boy and the girl in a room to chat and let them say yes or no to the mar­riage.

"Nowa­days girls, out­side mar­riage and un­der age, do­ing any­thing in school and no­body is be­ing ar­rest­ed. The school sys­tem needs to pull up on these chil­dren.

"Fr Har­ris should con­duct a cen­sus in the schools and see if that is not the big­ger prob­lem."

Roop­nar­ine, nev­er­the­less, joined the na­tion­al cho­rus of voic­es in call­ing for the amend­ment of the Hin­du Mar­riage Act.

"Af­ter a girl fin­ish­es A Lev­els, around 17, 18, she can be al­lowed to mar­ry," he said. "Not be­fore. At that age they may be wise enough."

Roop­nar­ine not­ed, too, that even if par­ents are fol­low­ing the re­li­gion of their el­ders, their chil­dren are choos­ing their own ways.

"Young peo­ple nowa­days are not at­tend­ing tem­ple, church of mosque. They pre­fer club­bing."

And he asked: "Aren't you sup­posed to be 18 and over to en­ter a club?"