The Rate of Child Marriage Falls in Bangladesh
Child marriage: The recent scenario of Bangladesh
Bangladesh, a multicultural country, has had the ritual of child marriages since birth. In 2019, the adult literacy rate was 74.7%, increasing since independence in 1971. The issue of child marriage was not taken so seriously, but the Awami League government nurtured the laws and did an act that girls before 18 and boys before 21 could not marry or else they would be punished. The government aimed to stop marriages under 15 by 2021 and under 18 by 2041.
The ritual has been practiced for a long time, so preventing it will need a lot of time and resources. People in rural areas are more into child marriages than in the capital. The people of the capital are more educated and civilized, so they raise their children differently. They have the mentality to make their daughters well-educated and independent, whereas girls of villages are deprived of their fundamental rights in life.
Significant reasons for child marriage
Due to unemployment, poverty, fear, and insecurity among parents in Bangladesh, child marriages are considered. The father overthinks that he may not survive for long to marry his child off or may not afford to raise his daughter anymore. As a result, thoughts of marriage come into his mind. According to the typical Bangladesh norm, girls are more likely to handle household work, and boys are supposed to be the breadwinner. However, the thought and norms are changing rapidly as people become more civilized. Hence, girls' education is not supported in many backdated families in Bangladesh. According to a report by UNESCO, the female literacy rate of Bangladesh will be 71.18% in 2020. Due to rural areas' less developed education system, students cannot get proper education after their HSCs. This further leads female students into marriages and male students to work, where they become less skillful workers compared to other countries' workers.
Bangladesh: Child marriage spike amidst Covid-19
The Covid-19 situation increased child marriage in Bangladesh. MJF (Manusher Jonne Foundation) reported that at least 13,886 girls in 21 districts were victims of child marriage between April 2020 to October 2020. Thus, we can see the data are in the time of lockdown due to the Covid-19 virus, poverty, and food scarcity led to overthinking in parents, leading to marriages of their underaged children. More facts, such as returning migrants due to the Covid-19 situation, led to more marriages occurring in the country. Bangladesh's people think migrants or foreigners more superior, so they give their daughters to secure their future. Thus, they do not care about other factors, such as the girl's consent or the spousal gap.
Adverse effects of child marriage
Nearly one in three child brides have spouses ten years older than them compared to one in four young women married in adulthood. Thus, this gap makes things for child brides worse as their husbands got dominance to apply due to their age gap, and the wife needs to be dominated as she is younger. This further leads to mental and physical torture, which is expected in many households in Bangladesh. Child marriage, in one way, supports the thought of males dominating society, which needs to be changed, or else the upbringing of the next generation could be hampered.
Bangladesh is making progress in reducing child marriage.
However, now things are changing gradually. According to a UNICEF report in 2020 regarding child marriage in Bangladesh, the number of child marriages has fallen by 40% from 1970 to 2020. Divisions like Chattogram and Sylhet have shown significant progress in the last 25 years. Many NGOs are nowadays working to ensure the prevention of child marriage, such as BRAC's Community Empowerment Program (CEP) is closely monitoring the prevention of child marriage, and they prevented 670 child marriages in 2019 and 1091 in 2020 through persuasion and educational efforts. Furthermore, the government of the Republic of Bangladesh also ensures that every child gets a minimum proper education despite their race and background. They have held special teams and informers who report such incidents directly to the legal authority, taking further legal action against the incident.
Child marriage in rural and urban areas and initiatives to stop it
Due to this pandemic, many families in rural and urban areas secretly plan to marry off their underage daughters. The depressing part is that the KAZI (a government-authorized person who registers the marriage) also supports such actions. In Bangladesh, the data of birth certificates can be manipulated, and such manipulations make child marriage more accessible. However, if some local laws can be reformed, monitoring and preventing child marriages would be easier. For example, suppose the KAZI does not feel that the girl is of the appropriate age for marriage. In that case, he could directly report it to the legal authority, which would help them to take further action to ensure that the girl and boy are of appropriate age as they are getting married. In addition, NGOs can carry out mindset developing sessions in rural and urban areas of the country to educate people about child marriage exposing the opposing sides of it. Thus, it may prevent them from involving their underaged daughter in marriage.
The role of government in preventing child marriage
Since the aim of the government is to prevent child marriage fully within 2041, they can take action to open universities in rural and urban areas of Bangladesh and give female scholarships especially, which may encourage females and their families to carry on their daughter's higher studies. To increase our economic growth, we need to ensure that every factor, such as GDP, HDI index, literacy rate, and so on, is at a standard rate. Thus, the issue of child marriage affects these critical factors, which are the indicators of economic growth.
Zero child marriage by 2041
Bangladesh is seen as a role model of economic growth, but factors like child marriage create obstacles to its growth. The government and many private organizations are ensuring these obstacles will be removed. That is why they are making efforts from every side to ensure the development of people in every sector and every area. If proper steps are taken, we hope to see zero cases of child marriage in Bangladesh by or before 2041.