Voice of South

“Child marriage” is an acute problem in Bangladesh, being largely symptomatic of the extent of poverty which exists. And the suffering of a child after becoming a house wife in early age is really horrible.

A few months ago, I heard a story from on of my media colleges about Khadija Khatun who is staying in a village named Dilarpur on the bank of the gently flowing Jamuneswari River and some 350 kilometers north of Dhaka.
My college told me that, Khadija Khatun was 11 when she was married . That time she didn’t know what it means to be a wife. Unfortunately, a year later, Khadija fled back to her parents. Neither widowed nor divorced, Khadija ran away from in-laws who she says mistreated her and pressured her poor and landless father to make good on a promise to pay a dowry an illegal but common practice throughout much of rural Bangladesh.

Recently I followed an impressive report prepared by BBC mentioned that, classmates of a 13-year-old Bangladeshi school girl due to enter a forced marriage have united to stop the ceremony going ahead, police say. Around 50 pupils in the town of Satkhira took to the streets to demand that Habiba Sultana’s marriage be called off, they say.
Pupils even submitted a petition to police urging them to take action. Police summoned Habiba’s father and ordered him to stop the girl’s marriage, which they said was illegal. Her father was told to sign a bond in which he promised not marry off his daughter while she is still a child, the Bangladesh Daily Star reported. It said that the wedding was to have taken place in the south-western town of Satkhira on Friday.

BBC reported, Police say that Habiba, a student of Abdul Karim Girls’ High School, did not agree when her poverty-stricken father arranged for her to marry a 23-year-old neighbor. Police say that she was too frightened to protest.
When she told her friends about the impending marriage, they rallied round and urged her not to go ahead. Parents of her friends contacted Habiba’s father and tried to stop him from going ahead with the wedding. Initially he ignored their protests, but changed his mind after the police were alerted and small protests were held outside the school.

I think it’s important to create awareness among peoples to protest Child marriage.

According to official statistics, nearly half of Bangladesh’s 140 million people live in poverty. This Grinding poverty has forced villagers to accept both child marriages and dowries as unavoidable reality. A survey statistics shows that over 40% of women are married before reaching 15 years of age in Bangladesh.

Poor parents feel marrying off their young girls will relieve some of their economic burden. The groom’s family demands a dowry to grab some cash that helps ease their poverty. Poverty traps both (families), but the worst victim is the girl, who has no real shelter. Naturally uneducated child brides are unaware of their rights. Marriage to them means simply shifting homes.

However, we need joint collaboration between Governments, NGO staffs, Donors, Medias and security agencies to reduce child marriage. Its harmful for a developing nation like us. We need to aware peoples that the legal age of marriage is 18 years for girls and 21 years for boys in Bangladesh.