In a pioneering recommendation, the Kerala Women’s Commission has asked for legal action against parents who compel their underage daughters to become nuns.

The Commission, disposing of a petition by Christian activist K K Thomas, has also asked the state Government to fix a minimum permissible age for young women opting for nunhood.

More significantly, it has also urged the Government to put effective measures in place to make sure that no young woman becoming a nun is denied her right to family property, as is the practice now.

The Commission has also recommended that the Government come up with appropriate mechanisms to rehabilitate nuns who wish to shed the cassock and return to normal social lives.

Commission chairperson Justice D Sreedevi said the Government must arrange for a comprehensive study of how many underage girls from Kerala have been forced to enter nunhood due to parental or family pressures, and how many of the state’s nuns wish to come back to normal social lives, and evolve a comprehensive package of measures for them.

Kerala accounts for the highest number of Christian priests and nuns in the country, officially logging 33,226 out of the 102,810 nuns and 7,216 novices in India, as of 2006.

Studies, including those by international church groups, had underlined that while barely one-fourth of male aspirants entering the Christian seminaries eventually become priests and the rest get off, before or during the formation years, few nuns manage to return to normal lives even if they wish to, because of severe social, church and family pressures, and the stigma.

... contd.