DHAKA, 6 April 2011 (IRIN): Forældre i Bangladesh bortgifter fortsat deres mindreårige døtre, selv om både statslige og ikke-statslige initiativer forsøger at dæmme op for børneægteskaber i landet, skriver IRIN.
“Early marriage is a big problem for Bangladesh. We cannot reduce maternal mortality and morbidity if we do not stop early marriage,” Gias Uddin, a project manager for the Family Planning Association of Bangladesh (FPAB), the largest family planning NGO in the country, told IRIN.
Efforts have been, and are being, made to this end: Bangladesh has been offering secondary school scholarships to girls who postpone marriage since 1994, and a UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) programme for adolescent empowerment conducts training in over 25 of the country’s 64 districts.
According to UNICEF’s 2011 State of the World’s Children report, about a third of women in Bangladesh aged 20-24 are married by the age of 15, and 66 percent percent of girls will wed before their 18th birthday – up 2 percent from 2009.
The root causes of child marriage – the prospect of reduced dowry payments, and fears of sexual harassment – are continuing to prompt parents to marry girls off before they reach adulthood, according to Zinnat Afroze, a social development adviser at Plan International, Bangladesh.
In many cases, parents marry off their daughters at an early age to prevent them from being stalked or sexually harassed, she said, adding: “Parents can give less dowry money if they marry off their daughter at an early age.”
