trichy the recent stopping of a marriage arranged between a 13yearold girl and a 27yearold man in kattur has once again highlighted the prevalence of the deeprooted practice in the districtit was in the first week of september that the officials of the district social welfare department received an anonymous call informing about the arrangement for the marriage for a schoolgirl a team of officials went to the area and found the preparation for the marriage at a temple the timely intervention of the officials put an end to the marriage of the girl with a 27yearold close relative her family wanted to keep the relationship intact by marrying the girl off to the man who was 14 years elder to herpeople try to justify the practice of child marriage despite understanding the complications to the child involved in love affairs are one of the major reasons that prompt parents to marry off their underage daughters if a family finds that a girl is in love with someone the next step would be to marry her off to a relative even though he is much elder to her said district social welfare officer dswo s ushatrichy district has become infamous for child marriages of late the first eight months of this year witnessed 50 cases of stopping of child marriages in the central district however many such cases went unchecked the district social welfare department child line and police stopped a total of six child marriages in august 2016 with the addition of new cases the district has crossed an alarming number of 50 cases of child marriages prevented till now this year the total number of child marriage stopped in 2015 was 52 in 2014 2013 and 2012 authorities stopped 48 46 and 42 child marriages respectivelythe numbers show the worrying trend of people resorting to putting their underage daughters into wedlock and with three more months to go for the year to end more number of calls about child marriage are expected to land in child line helpline