Child marriage in Bangladesh hinders girls' education and lifelong opportunities.
Despite efforts and three decades of education-focused interventions, Bangladesh continues to be ranked eighth in the world today in terms of the incidence of child marriage.
As Meem tended to the child, a group of girls around her age strolled past the yard.
Why parents to resort to child marriage?
Why are so many out of school then?
Climate change adaptation programmes must support efforts that promote greater access to quality education for adolescent girls.
Comprehensive measures needed to tackle this issue effectively
Shocking revelations coming out of Brac study
Even in 2023, there are a number of very basic rights that Bangladeshi girls don't have.
Jharna (not her real name), a 14-year-old girl living in Rayerbazar slum in Dhaka, fears that all her dreams may be dashed because of early marriage as she is from a community that expects girls to be married off and bear children even before they reach adulthood. Jharna, who is a child, doesn't want that.
Child marriage – despite the caveat in the new amendment of the law – remains illegal in the country. Last Friday, as eight under-age girls were about to be married off in Dinajpur, locals informed the local administration.
A recent move by the Government to allow child marriage under special circumstances is tantamount to excluding many Bangladeshis from the benefits of growth and development.
On the first day of April in 1930, a law came into force in the then Indian subcontinent restraining child marriage.
Much to the public's dismay, the parliament has passed the Child Marriage Restraint Act-2017 with a very significant proviso – special circumstances -- that allows a boy or a girl to get married before reaching the minimum age limit.
In Bangladesh child marriages is one of the most common phenomenon and the existing law in the country has failed to eliminate child marriage.
Child marriage is illegal in Nepal, yet the impoverished Himalayan nation has failed to put in place policies to curb the practice with almost 40 percent of girls married before the age of 18.
In reality, a village father does not care about Bangladesh's commitments at the Girl Summit 2014; he cares about his daughter, and his social standing. Integrally linked to this sense of honour are cultural ideas like virginity or purity.
According to UNICEF, 23,000 children would not have to die if women in the country did not give birth before the age of 20.
The news of marriage of an underage girl after coercion and torture, allegedly by a policeman, is deplorable.
