WHAT'S ON MY MIND!!!

ITS THE GIRL CHILD........Say No to Girl Child Slavery.

EPISODE 5.

EARLY AND FORCED MARRIAGE IN BANGLADESH .

Bangladesh has one of the world’s highest rates of early marriage. According to United Nations figures, 66% of Bangladesh girls are marriage before the age of 18 and approximately 20 to 29 percent of girls in Bangladesh married before age 15, according to a UNICEF study. Two percent of girls in Bangladesh are married before age 11. Successive inaction by the central government and complicity by local officials allows child marriage, including of very young girls, to continue unchecked, while Bangladesh’s high vulnerability to natural disasters puts more girls at risk as their families are pushed into the poverty that helps drive decisions to have girls married.
Child marriage is an epidemic in Bangladesh, and only worsens with natural disasters,The Bangladesh government has said some of the right things, but its proposal to lower the age of marriage for girls sends the opposite message. The government should act before another generation of girls is lost."

Bangladesh has the fourth-highest rate in the world of child marriage before age 18, after Niger, the Central African Republic, and Chad. 

ROOT CAUSE

In Bangladesh there are several factors driving the high rate of child marriage.
The reasons behind early marriage stem from the following ;

Traditional Bangladesh Customs and Moral Codes.

In Bangladesh, a patriarchal, unequal society prevails. On top of this, poverty is a major underpinning factor encouraging early marriage. Young girls are often considered as an economic burden by their families and their marriage to an older man and into another family is often a family survival strategy in order to obtain financial security. Additionally, parents are attracted by the prospect of lower Dowry payments if they marry their daughters off at an early age.
Another root cause of early marriage in Bangladesh is the

Fear Of Sexual Harassment Of Young daughters.

 Early marriage is seen as a way to “protect” a girl’s sexuality in an unsafe environment.
The Bangladesh government is yet to take sufficient steps to end child marriage, in spite of promises to do so, Instead, in steps in the wrong direction,
after her July 2014 pledge to end child marriage by 2041, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina attempted to lower the age of marriage for girls from 18 to 16 years old, raising serious doubts about her commitment.

Dowry

Dowry is also a driving factor with prices often increasing the older a girl gets. This financial pressure often means that girls from poorer families are more likely to be child brides.

Although illegal, the practise of dowry – requiring a bride’s family to pay significant sums to the groom encourages the marriage of the youngest adolescent girls because younger brides typically require smaller dowries. Dowry demands can continue after the wedding and sometimes result in violence against the bride when families are unable to pay.

Poor families think the birth of a male child is a heavenly gift, while the birth of a girl child is still treated as a curse.

Riha's Testimony

Take Riha's story as an example. Riha is 18 years old and lives in a tin-shed hut in the Mirpur slums of Dhaka with her 29 year-old husband, Jamil, who works as a pick-up van driver. They got married four years ago and have a 2 ½ year-old daughter. “When I was in love, I thought family life would be enjoyable. But now, I think it was a bad decision,” says Riha who once went to school regularly. “What do I do now after marriage? Take care of my son, wash dishes, clean the floor, wash clothes, and cook,” she says, with a regretful tone.

Riha’s mother, Soha Banu, said she gave consent to her daughter’s marriage as it became difficult to bear her expense. “I feared I would have to pay a huge dowry if she was married off at a later age,” she said.Soha, a widow, was also married off at the age of 14. She is now 35 years old.

As we see in Riha’s story, parents who live in poverty are attracted by the prospect of lower dowry payments if they marry their daughters off at an early age. The demand of dowry increases in parallel with age so families marry off young girls as early as possible to escape this burden. Due to the pressure of dowry, poor families think that birth of a male child is a heavenly gift, while the birth of a girl child is still treated as a curse.


School and work

Early marriage causes girls to drop out of education and limits their opportunities for social interaction. Only 45 per cent of adolescent girls are enrolled in secondary school and even fewer attend regularly. New brides are expected to work in their husbands’ households and are subject to the same hazards as child domestic workers.

TESTIMONIES

• “I got married because I quit school.” –Mariam A., who married at age 15. She left school after class 5 because going on to class 6 would have involved higher costs and a longer walk of 3.5 kilometers each way."

• Rabiya A. married when she was 13 and her husband was 30. “My in-laws said, ‘If you want to study you can,’ but as soon as I was married they said, ‘It’s not possible,’” Rabiya said. Rabiya is now 14 and said her in-laws and husband are disappointed that she is not pregnant yet.

From Mariam's testimony we could see   that her greatest challenge was the fact that her parent could no longer   further her education  due to Financial constraint  but from my research and findings I got to know that, the educational system in Bangladesh is three-tiered and highly subsidised. The government of Bangladesh operates many schools in the primary, secondary, and higher secondary levels. It also subsidises parts of the funding for many private schools. In the tertiary education sector, the government also funds more than 15 state universities through  Universities Grant Commission then, if that is the case why do young girls still have difficulty in going to school and families forcing them into marriage  at such a early age of 10- 15years?

I got to know that the practices of Gender Inequality, poverty and discrimination has eaten up the entire country of bangladesh where girls are of no importance.

Gender discrimination feeds social attitudes and customs that harm girls at every stage of their lives and fuel the country’s extremely high rate of child marriage.
inequalities in areas such as health, education, employment, and political freedom remain ongoing problems. Many of these inequalities are result of extreme poverty and traditional gender norms centered on a patrilineal and patriarchal kinship system.

Poverty
Despite the Bangladesh three-tiered and highly subsidised educational system most parent can't send their girl child to school because no money and their believe system that instead of paying with the little they have the girl child should be married off.

Bangladesh’s High Vulnerability to Natural Disasters

Natural disasters also exacerbate child marriage in many regions of Bangladesh. Frequent flooding and river erosion means many families live with the constant threat of insecurity and increased poverty, which impacts decisions about schooling and marriage for girls.

 The Brahmaputra is a transboundary river, originating in southwestern Tibet, flowing through the Himalayas, India's Assam State and Bangladesh, and out into the Bay of Bengal.

Every year, the river carries silt from the Himalayas and deposits it downstream in Bangladesh, creating myriad islands known as chars.Bangladesh's major rivers combined consume several thousand hectares of floodplain annually, destroying homes and infrastructure and leaving people landless and homeless.

Bangladesh Rivers eat up land and houses Trapping poor villages leading to early girl child marriage.

TESTIMONIES

• "Whatever land my father had and the house he had went under the water in the river erosion and that’s why my parents decided to get me married.” –Sultana M., who married at age 14 and is now 16 years old and 7 months pregnant."

• Amira 15 years old, holds her one-year-old son in the house where she lives with her mother, two sisters, and one brother. Amira was married when she was 13 years old to a man who threatened to commit suicide if the family didn’t agree to the marriage. After 14 months, her husband sent her home; he no longer financially supports her or the baby.Amira fears her family’s home will be washed away by river erosion by the end of the year.

For Sultana and Amira their marriages at age 14 and 13 years was as a result of river erosion. They where forced into early marriage just because of  Natural disaster that was their making because to the parent their marriage is family saving grace.....This is bad and we must together fight for the girl child freedom.

Health Risks
leads to early pregnancy. One third of teenage girls aged 15 to 19 are mothers or are already pregnant. Adolescent mothers are more likely to suffer from birthing complications in the adult women.

LizzyJaneRayce Choose To Stand For The Girl Child.. Say No To Girls Slavery.. 

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