The News Minute | August 29, 2014 | 06:30 pm IST'God’s own country' is renowned for its peak-high literacy levels; however recent studies by the UNICEF show an increase in child marriage in Kerala.UNICEF's Child Protection Specialist in India Dora Giusti attributed the rising levels of child marriages to migration from northern India, according to a Deccan Herald report.The UNICEF report showed that child marriage was more prevalent in the rural areas than urban at 48 per cent versus 29 percent for the latter. The practice was carried out more commonly in low caste and scheduled tribes, said Guisti according to Deccan Herald .The UNICEF report also mentioned that the gap between urban and rural areas has almost halved to 18.6 per cent in 2007-08 from 30.2 per cent in 1992-93.Bihar held the top slot for maximum incidence of child marriages at 68 per cent while Haryana had the least at nine per cent, said the report.In the six states with maximum occurrence, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, the report said at least one out of every two married women in the 20-24 age bracket had been a child bride.