Community support must for child marriage-free society
Workshop told
Responsive support from the community, especially teachers, parents and influential leaders, has become must to ensure adolescent-friendly reproductive health services for reducing child marriage and child pregnancy substantially and sustainably, said discussants in Rajshahi.
They viewed that schoolteachers and others concerned should be trained on the issue so that they can teach their students and guide them properly.
At a daylong workshop titled "Coordination Meeting with Union Parishad: Community Awareness towards Eradicating Child Marriage" held at Nezampur Union Parishad (UP) under Nachole Upazila on Thursday, the speakers said freeing the youth from various misconceptions regarding reproductive health is very vital.
"Eradicating child marriage and child pregnancy is imperative in creating a glorious Bangladesh" was main theme of the training programme. Over 35 people including public representatives, schoolteachers, marriage registrars, religious leaders and other stakeholders joined the workshop.
Agriculture Sustainable and Socio-Economic Development Organization (ASSEDO) organised the programme in association with Prevention of Child Marriage and Child Pregnancy Project and Oxfam-Novib.
The speakers also called for building a social resistance against child marriage and teenage pregnancies.
Rabiul Alam, executive director of ASSEDO, said there is no alternative to creating community awareness through raising school-based awareness on adolescence for combating the existing rate of child marriage.
He said the project aims to involve community people so that they can play pivotal role in changing the social mindset on child marriage and child pregnancy.
Besides, the venture intends to build awareness among the adolescents about their rights to reproductive health, he added.
The practice of child marriage is very damaging, especially for girls. It seems that girls are treated as burden to society, mostly in rural areas.
Terming child marriage as gross violation of human rights, they said children are being married off frequently, despite multifarious interventions by the government and non-government organisations concerned.
It is vital to increase awareness regarding the negative impacts of early marriage with the help of the mass media.
They stated that utmost importance should be given to check early marriage of children. Otherwise, the family planning activities will go in vain and the violence against women would not reduce as well.