Any conversation about a young woman’s sexual agency in rural India is loaded with social and cultural subtext. One of the biggest hurdles in normalising sex education in schools is the anxiety that it will lead young girls astray and put them in harm’s way. And yet, the same belief system actually endangers their future and reproductive health by pushing them into early marriages without a second thought. A 50 per cent rise was recorded in the cases of child marriages in 2020 over the previous year if you go by recent NCRB data.