“I am committed to advocating and working towards ending child marriage from Bangladesh”—Fariha Hossain
Fariha Hossain, a young activist, was one of the nine participants from Bangladesh to take part in the international UNLEASH innovation Lab 2019. She is a development practitioner and Project Officer at RHSTEP. Fariha joined Asia Safe Abortion Partnership (ASAP) as a Youth Advocate, in 2018, as voluntary activities, where the team works together in developing program. "We worked on creating awareness about the rights of young women to terminate unwanted pregnancy safely with dignity, through seminar, sessions and workshops," she said.
Her journey at UNLEASH was an extra ordinary experience for her as she shared. "We made a team of five and identified a problem that causes the slowing progress towards the SDG targets. Our talk was to identify a solution that can help address the Sustainable Development Goals," she shared.
The team focused on the involvement of young girls in transactional sex (Sex for basic needs, where young girls position as victims in transactional sexual relationships) exposes them to the higher risks of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD) and teenage pregnancies, as well as deprivation of the education of these girls. "We have primarily focused on empowering these girls through alternative sources of income and counsel them to make better decisions," said Fariha. "Our initial targeted area was Hoppely, a low-income community in Zimbabwe, where girls aged between 8-18 are forced in transactional sex to generate income for the basic needs in their homes."
The team came up with an idea, 'Fathers4Daughters', which was to shift or switch the responsibility to men. There are a lot of skills available among these population. "Our goal was to make partnership with the local businesses surrounded in urban towns to build a job database, where the male members, especially the fathers of the family can register with our programme to get access to these job opportunities," shared Fariha. "After registration process, they will require to attend weekly sessions where they will be trained on how to make a career with compassion. To grab their attention, we will provide them food hampers upon signing up for the program and attending the sessions."
At the same time, their solution seeks to contribute to the local economic development, through business partnerships to provide building capacities to implement and improve local entrepreneurship, as well as to offer service required by individual or privates near to the area.
Fariha has a vision in implementing her idea locally. "Daulatdia which widely believed to be the largest brothel in the world," asserts Fariha. "Many young girls are forced to working in those brothels and they also being sold by their husband in such case child brides, sexual abused girls. I am committed to advocating and working towards ending child marriage from Bangladesh" Also, she wants to contribute on reducing child marriage in order to achieve a range of SDGs.
Fariha has also worked with SRHR (Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights) as freelancer and wrote various journals in websites and interactive social media forums to connect with youth networks from different parts of the country. "I am really grateful to UNLEASH for creating a platform and giving me the opportunity to participate in the idea innovation stage," she shared.
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