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BENGALURU: Child rights activists on Saturday alleged that a few government schoolteachers are neglecting their duty of informing their superiors about absenteeism among girl students, who they fear are potential child brides.

At an interactive session organised by Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (KSCPCR), activists said their visits to multiple schools revealed that teachers, who are among the first to get clues about girls being pushed into marriage, are not doing the needful to prevent it.

Representatives from NGOs said several teachers were not marking girls present or absent in the attendance registry o reduce their own work of following up on girls who keep missing school.

“The y are using dots against their names instead of saying whether they are present or absent. Teachers don’t want to pursue the matter with higher authorities, write letters or even alert the child welfare committee,” an activist said.

Representatives from multiple districts attended the session, which also had some government officials.

Nagendra Madhyastha, director, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, education department, said he’ll bring this to the notice of higher authorities. Vasudeva Sharma, executive director, Child Rights Trust, said the government must run the child marriage prevention helpline 24/7. At present, it works only from 10am to 5pm.

The event that aimed at communicating with representatives from many departments — child marriage protection officers — witnessed a poor response, with only a few officials turning up.

