Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Thursday praised Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for showing "political will" to end discrimination prevalent in the society against the girl child.
"The chief minister (Kumar) has set himself certain benchmarks, and is looking to achieve certain goals. I am surprised by his political will to do something positive," Tutu told reporters in Delhi.
Tutu's comments came after a visit to Bihar to promote equality for girls and women.
He was in India for a four-day visit during which he and members of 'The Elders', an organisation that works for peace and human rights, raised awareness about child marriage, with a special focus on the girl child.
Tutu is the chairman of 'The Elders'.
The Nobel Laureate was joined by Ela Bhatt, founder of NGO 'SEWA', Dr Gro Brundtland and Mary Robinson, all associated with the organisation.
In Bihar, they met Kumar, senior government officials and representatives of panchayats from across the state, as well as members of NGO 'Jagriti', which aims to stop child marriages.
The leaders also took part in a meeting of 'Girls not Brides,' an international organisation created by The Elders to end child marriages. About 15 groups from India are a part of this initiative.
The Nobel Laureate said that South Africa owed a "great deal to India as it was the first country to raise the question of apartheid in the United Nations." "India played a critical role in the struggle against apartheid, and gave us Gandhi," Tutu said. He said that country could achieve much more if it set its girls and women free to participate in decision making. SEWA founder Bhatt said that the first six points in the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) were linked to child marriage.
Like poverty, Bhatt said, child marriage is also a violence happening against girls with the consent of society. The decline in percentage of child marriages over the past few years is very less, she said.
Robinson, who is also the former Irish president, said that religion and tradition are sometimes twisted to subjugate women and girls.
Over one crore girls get married across the globe in a year without their consent or even knowledge of who they are marrying, she said, adding that wrong traditions can be changed with awareness and education.
Emphasising the health hazards of marrying young, Dr Gro Brundtland, the former Prime Minister of Norway, said that child marriages lead to higher infant and maternal mortality rates.
