Legal loopholes enabling early marriages: speakers
Rules have not yet been formulated under the Child Marriage Restraint Act 2017, giving rise to misuse of the law, rights activists said yesterday.
Since there is a lack of willingness from the government side to discuss the matter, the non-government and rights organisations should gather data from the areas where they work against child marriages on how legal obligations are bypassed to marry off underage girls, speakers said at a views-exchange meeting organised by We Can, a countrywide programme aimed for behavioural change against violence against women, with support from Global Affairs Canada and Oxfam.
The information can be presented to the government to press for immediate formulation of rules under the act, as suggested at the discussion tiled “One year following the enactment of Child Marriage Restraint Act 2017 and the current scenario” at the Dhaka office of Manusher Jonno Foundation, with Co-chairperson of We Can and MJF Executive Director Shaheen Anam in the chair.
In a presentation, Jinat Ara Haque, executive coordinator of We Can Alliance to End Violence against Women, said the provision of the act, which allows underage marriages under “special circumstances”, was being misused.
The “special circumstances” provision would permit parents, and in the absence of parents, the minors' guardians, to get a court order and marry their wards off even before they reach the minimum marriageable age in their (the children's) “best interests”.
When marriage should be considered in their best interests is not clear. To take advantage of the provision, Jinat said, parents and guardians in Bagerhat, Khulna, Faridpur, Jhenaidah and Jessore were found to be seeking help from lawyers to get court permission for early marriage.
While it has become widespread that the new law permits early marriage, parents and even the local administration are not aware of its positive aspects like it doesn't accept an affidavit as legal proof of age; only birth registration certificate, school/college certificate and passport are recognised, discussants said.
To implement the law, legal and systematic loopholes should be plugged, which require the formulation of rules under the act. Parents marry off their girl without registration and wait till she becomes 18 for registering the marriage. The girl in this case remains vulnerable without legal protection until her marriage is registered, Jinat said.
Transparency should be ensured in birth registration, said Gita Rani Adhikary, senior programme officer of Oxfam.
“If every childbirth is registered within 45 days [as per law], we will see the outcome after 18 years,” said Saiful Alam, advocacy coordinator of Oxfam.
The government has to make separate arrangements like “safe homes” to shelter girls who face pressure from their families to get married early against their will. They often surrender to the pressure because they live with the families, Gita added.
NGOs and rights organisations have to work at the grassroots level to raise awareness, build community monitoring mechanism engaging youth groups and forge equal relationships between girls and boys, in parallel with working at the policy level to change the scenario, speakers observed.
Child marriage will not be eradicated overnight, but the civil society and rights activists should focus on rules formulation to lay the ground for implementation of the 2017 act, said Shaheen Anam, concluding the discussion.
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