Local govt's role must to stop child marriage

Forced and child marriages cannot be stopped without the active roles of local government representatives and local administrations, said discussants in the capital yesterday.

Such marriages take place due to cultural belief, religious orthodoxy and financial constraints, said Shahnaz Arefin, director of ActionAid Bangladesh.

Local communities in some instances even do not consider child marriage as a problem, rather they consider it as a way of disburdening the liability of a girl child, she added. 

According to a Unicef survey finding, 68 percent of around 27 million girls in Bangladesh are married off before reaching their minimum legal marriageable age, which is 18, Shahnaz said.

An ActionAid Bangladesh press release, citing the 2011 Demographic Health Survey, said that 65 percent of women aged 20 to 24 years were found to have been married off before 18. 

Bangladesh chapter of the international NGO organised the discussion at Canadian High Commission where experiences of a project titled "Stopping Child Marriage: Engaging Youth as Leaders in their Communities" were also shared.

ActionAid Bangladesh implemented the three-month project in Pabna and Kurigram while in Tangail it was conducted by a local NGO Nari Maitree since last November with Canada Fund for Local Initiatives.

Canadian High Commissioner to Bangladesh, Benoit-Pierre Laramee, said, child and forced marriages hinder the development of girls, their communities and their countries. It is a global challenge and Canada is striving to eradicate child marriage by 2030, he added.

Shaheen Akter Dolly, executive director of Nari Maitree, also spoke.