CHILD MARRIAGES IN BANGLADESH: TEENAGERS, POVERTY, EDUCATION AND SOCIAL PRESSURES

CHILD MARRIAGES IN BANGLADESH

Teenage marriage is a big problem in Bangladesh. One of the worst in the world for having high child marriage rates, the country is home to 38 million child brides, including currently married girls and women who were first married in child hood. Of these 15 million married before they were 15. Fifty-one percent of women in Bangladesh were married before their 18th birthday. [Source: UNICEF data.unicef.org/topic/child-protection/child-marriage ]

Age at first marriage: 23.8 for men and for 16 women (compared to 33.4 for men and 31.2 for women in Finland and 22.1 for men and 17.9 for women on Nepal) [Source: Wikipedia and Wikipedia ]

Percent of young women between 15 and 19 who are married: 51 percent, compared to 3.9 percent in the United States. Legal Age for marriage: 21 for men and 18 for women without parental consent. With parental consent there are no age limits. [Source: UNICEF, United Nations Data data.un.org]

Child marriage is defined as a marriage or union taking place before the age of 18. According to Girls Not Brides: Fifty-nine percent of girls in Bangladesh are married before their 18th birthday and 22 percent are married before the age of 15. Bangladesh has the third highest prevalence of child marriage in the world, and the second highest absolute number of women married or in a union before the age of 18 globally – 4,382,000. Four percent of boys are married before the age of 18.

According to Human Rights Watch: “Bangladesh has the highest rate of child marriage of girls under the age of 15 in the world, with 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. [Source: Human Rights Watch, June 9, 2015]

Child brides are more likely to live in rural areas and come from poorer household and less likely to have secondary education. Married girls are four times more likely to be out of school than unmarried ones. Nearly half of child brides gave birth before the age of 18 and 80 percent gave girth before the age of 20.

History of Child Marriages in Bangladesh

According to Human Rights Watch: “Child marriage has been illegal in Bangladesh since 1929, and the minimum age of marriage has been set at 18 for women and 21 for men since the 1980s. In spite of this, Bangladesh has the fourth-highest rate in the world of child marriage before age 18, after Niger, the Central African Republic, and Chad. [Source: Human Rights Watch, June 9, 2015]

In an article on Bangladeshi village life, Kamran Nahar wrote: “In the past when children became juvenile, parents selected their partners through negotiation with other families. Generally, age range for girls in marriage was 13-14 and for boys 15-16. The appearance and age of males did get less importance than their economic condition, but for females their beauty and tenderness were under the first consideration. This is why it was seen that a 13 years old girl was married to a man of 35 years, which occurred usually. One man generally kept 2-3 wives at a time, before which society never made any hindrance. [Source: “Bangladesh Culture: A Study of the South Para of Village ‘Silimpur’” by Kamrun Nahar, September 2, 2006]

Although the age at marriage appeared to be rising in the 1980s, early marriage remained the rule even among the educated, and especially among women. The mean age at marriage in 1981 for males was 23.9, and for females 16.7. Women students frequently married in their late teens and continued their studies in the households of their fathers-in-law. Divorce, especially of young couples without children, was becoming increasingly common in Bangladesh, with approximately one in six marriages ending in this fashion in the 1980s. [Source: James Heitzman and Robert Worden, Library of Congress, 1989 *]

According to the Guinness Book of Records the earliest marriage occurred in 1986 when an 11-month-old boy was married to a 3-month-old girl to end a 20-year-old feud over some dispute property. In the early 2000s, 91 percent among women between 40 and 44 and 71 percent among women between 20 and 24 were married before age 18.

Experiences of Child Brides in Bangladesh

““When I got married I was so young I was not ready, but my parents forced me,” Noor B., who married at age 11 and has 2 sons and 2 daughter, told Human Rights Watch: “So I decided if I had children I would not get them married young.” Noor’s husband does not work and is physically abusive to her, but she has started her own business and has a shop selling clothing where she has earned enough to pay for her children’s education with assistance from loans that are available specifically to pay for education fees. Her daughters are now 22 and 26 years old and neither are married—the older one just finished her bachelor of arts degree and the younger one is applying to universities. “I had to struggle a lot because a lot of people say, ‘You are feeding milk and mangoes to your daughters, but they are getting old.’ I say I am the one who will understand my daughters,” Noor said. “As soon as my daughters start working and earn money to stand on their own two feet I will choose their husbands. [Source: “Marry Before Your House is Swept Away: Child Marriage in Bangladesh”,Human Rights Watch, June 9, 2015]

“Twelve is a normal age for marriage here,” Laki B., explaining to Human Rights Watch why her father, a religious leader, arranged her marriage when she was 12 years old. Laki’s mother said, “Her father is very fond of her— that’s why he wanted to get her married young. He thought she was his only daughter so it would be very good to get her married early. He didn’t understand that this would happen.” Laki, at age 15, has moved back in with her parents after serious abuse by her husband and in-laws.

“My parents have no other children and they love me very much,” said Marjina A., who is not sure of her age but looks 14 or 15 and has been married for more than one and a half years. “Out of their caring they got me married because we didn’t have any money to send me to school, so they thought it was better to get me married.”

“We had to get her married to save our respect,” Dipanjali B. said, explaining why she arranged her daughter’s marriage at 17. “She was very pretty and people were threatening to kidnap her and every time she went to school she was harassed.” Dipanjali’s daughter told her parents that there was a boy with a motorcycle who said he wanted to take her to his family’s shop, and her parents became alarmed. “Sometimes girls are taken and sometimes they run away,” Dipanjali said. “Either way it is a hit on our dignity. My husband and my brothers got together and decided [on a marriage for her]. My daughter was not happy to marry— she wanted to study more and get a job but unfortunately we couldn’t [let her do that].”

Reasons for High Number of Child Marriages in Bangladesh

Child brides are more likely to live in rural areas and come from poorer household and less likely to have secondary education. The 134-page report, “Marry Before Your House is Swept Away: Child Marriage in Bangladesh” by Human Rights Watch is based on more than a hundred interviews conducted across the country, most of them with married girls, some as young as age 10. It documents the factors driving child marriage in Bangladesh – including poverty, natural disasters, lack of access to education, social pressure, harassment, and dowry.

According to Girls Not Brides “While child marriage is moderately more common in rural areas where 60 percent of girls are married before age 18, compared to 55 percent in urban areas, the metropolitan area of Rajshahi has the highest proportion of child marriage in Bangladesh: seven out of ten girls are married by the age of 18.

According to the World Bank: “There are also differences between regions, with the lowest measures observed in Sylhet and the highest measures observed (according to the headcount index for the 18 years threshold) in Rangpur, followed by Rajshahi, Khulna, and Dhaka. The ranking of the regions in terms of the measures obtained with the 15 and 18 years thresholds tends to be similar, but differences tend to be magnified further when considering the lower age threshold for extreme child marriage. Apart from Sylhet, child marriage is less prevalent in Chittagong. [Source: Chata Malé and Quentin Wodon, Child Marriage Series with Education Global Practice Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice, World Bank, March 2016]

According to Girls Not Brides: Evidence indicates that child marriage is most common in areas of Bangladesh where the adult population is skewed toward men due the traditional preference for boys and sex-selective abortion. Younger girls are being drawn into the pool of eligible marriage partners to alleviate a squeeze in the “marriage market”. [Source: Girls Not Brides]

“Humanitarian settings can encompass a wide range of situations before, during, and after natural disasters, conflicts, and epidemics. While gender inequality is a root cause of child marriage in both stable and crisis contexts, often in times of crisis, families see child marriage as a way to cope with greater economic hardship and to protect girls from increased violence. In August 2017, Bangladesh received a massive influx of Rohingya refugees, fleeing persecution in Myanmar. Bangladesh is also one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world, exposed to a variety of natural hazards including cyclones, floods and earthquakes. The high population density exacerbates the impact of disasters.

“Natural disasters have showed to exacerbate child marriage in many regions of Bangladesh. Frequent flooding means many families live in insecure conditions and they marry off daughters as a survival tactic. For example, a 2014 study found that the economic crises created by climate challenges are leading to an increase in child and forced marriages because the dowry is cheaper for younger girls.

Social and Family Pressures That Encourage Child Marriages in Bangladesh

According to Girls Not Brides: There are prevailing gender norms that underline and intertwine child marriage and family honour, including the shaming of unmarried girls, the fixation over the sexual purity of younger girls and the parental responsibility of marrying girls. Nearly seven out of 10 people in Bangladesh believe that women earn their identity and social status through marriage. Because high value is placed on the virginity of girls, child marriage is often used as a way to control pre-marital sex, protect girls from (real or perceived) sexual violence and avoid stigma in case of pregnancy out of wedlock. A 2013 national study shows that fathers are most often responsible for deciding when and whom to marry their daughters to. [Source: Girls Not Brides]

Explaining why she arranged for her oldest daughter to marry at age 15, “ 40-year-old Abida N. told Human Rights Watch: When my daughter got to a certain age people in society said, “You have to get her married.” You have to remember I am a very poor person, so I have to listen to what society says. I have to go out sometimes and they said, “Your daughter will do bad things with boys while you’re out.” I have to go out to work— I do agricultural work and I am out all day. If while I’m out something happens to my daughter I will be taken out of my house and beaten up and held responsible. [Source: “Marry Before Your House is Swept Away: Child Marriage in Bangladesh”,Human Rights Watch, June 9, 2015]

According to Human Rights Watch: “ Many girls and parents interviewed by Human Rights Watch cited social pressure as a key factor driving child marriage in communities where child marriage is the norm.“Elders [male community leaders] in the area might say your daughter is getting old,” is Rekha H.’s explanation for why both her older and younger sisters were married at age 11, and Rekha herself married at age 12. “No one said anything, but [my parents] were afraid, so before anyone could they got us married.” Rekha’s brother married at age 13. Rekha and the other two older daughters never attended school, but their two younger sisters are currently in school. The three older daughters are trying to prevent their parents from arranging a marriage for a fourth sister who is now 11 years old. “We are trying to stop them. We are saying we have health problems and feel weak and can’t work properly. I think we’ll be able to prevent it,” Rekha said.

“A lot of people used to put their eyes on my daughters, so I had to get them married,” Asma C. said. Asma has seven children—four sons and three daughters. At the time of the interview her daughters were 18, 16, and 15 years old. They were all married, at the ages of 16, 14, and 15 respectively. Asma explained their early marriages in part based on her own experience. “I married when I was very young,” she said. “I still lost two milk teeth after I was married. Maybe I was nine years old. It was two years after I married before I became clever [began menstruating].”

According to Human Rights Watch: “Those interviewed for this report described strong social pressure to get girls married to prevent them from having a romantic or sexual relationship before marriage, and there is also great stigma attached to “love marriages.” Even just the possibility that a girl would be perceived as being involved in a romantic relationship was sometimes enough to prompt a rushed marriage, which can happen within a matter of days, according to interviewees. Child marriage is used by both communities and families to curb girls’ agency and deny them the chance to make their own decisions about dating and marriage. Girls who are too young to marry may still be mature enough to make their own decisions about dating and relationships and should be permitted to do so without facing forced marriage as a consequence. Urgent as it is to end child marriage, efforts to do so should be carefully crafted to respect girls’ autonomy in decisions about relationships.

Child Marriages and Poverty in Bangladesh

According to Girls Not Brides: “In Bangladesh, child marriage is also driven by poverty: There is a negative association between child marriage and household wealth. Girls are frequently considered a financial burden and they are married off to alleviate the family economy. As a result, the median age of marriage for girls living in the poorest households of Bangladesh is 15 years, compared to 18 for those living in the richest households. Dowry prices typically increase as girls get older and “less attractive”, meaning many families marry girls off at a younger age. [Source: Girls Not Brides]

According to Human Rights Watch: “Poverty was the reason most commonly cited by girls and family members as driving decisions to marry young, and often their poverty was so extreme that the family simply did not have enough to eat and they arranged marriages for their daughters specifically because of the lack of food. Almost none of the extremely poor families interviewed for this report had received assistance from government aid programs. [Source: “Marry Before Your House is Swept Away: Child Marriage in Bangladesh”, Human Rights Watch, June 9, 2015]

“Families interviewed by Human Rights Watch who were unable to make ends meet often saw girls as a burden. This view is linked to discriminatory gender roles in Bangladesh, as daughters are expected to marry and go to live with their husband’s family, while sons typically remain living with and helping to support their parents. Gender discrimination means that when parents cannot afford to feed or educate all of their children, it is usually girls’ futures that are sacrificed first.

“We were very poor— sometimes we would eat every two or three days,” Lucky C., married at 15, told Human Rights Watch. “Even though they really wanted all three of their daughters to study it wasn’t possible, so they got me married.” Lucky is the youngest of the three girls. Her older sisters married at ages 11 and 12. “The economic situation of my in-laws is a little better– at least I can eat now,” she said.

““My parents couldn’t feed me so they decided to get me married, so I had no choice,” Shahana C., who married at age 14, said. Shahana married a year after her father died of cancer. Her mother struggled to support her three daughters by doing road work. “Married life is very good. My family is not having to suffer because of having to feed us.”

“Human Rights Watch research found that parents sometimes enlist relatives to help care for some of their children, but these arrangements also create vulnerability to child marriage and other problems, including denial of education. Ruhana M. was 10 when she was sent to live in Dhaka with her stepsister who works at a garment factory. “Because there are four brothers and three sisters in my family including me and we are very close in age, our parents couldn’t feed us. … She [Ruhana’s stepsister] took me and said, ‘I will feed her and send her to school,’” Ruhana said. The stepsister did not send Ruhana to school. “My [step] sister worked and I stayed home and worked in the home,” Ruhana said. “Whether it’s a sister or anyone else, would anyone take care of someone for free? I cooked and cleaned and fixed clothes.” Two years later, just days after Ruhana began menstruating at age 12, her stepsister helped arrange for her to be married. Ruhana said that her parents agreed to the marriage reluctantly. “At first my parents didn’t agree, but then they thought they couldn’t feed me, so they agreed.” [2

Child Marriages and Education in Bangladesh

According to Girls Not Brides: 75 percent of women with no education are married before the age of 18. At the same time, the prevalence of child marriage is 25 percent lower for each percentage point increase in women’s secondary education. Evidence also suggests that teaching girls about their rights and building skills for modern livelihoods can reduce the likelihood of child marriage by up to one third in Bangladesh. [Source: Girls Not Brides]

According to the World Bank: “Child marriage is associated with lower education attainment and a lower likelihood of literacy. Child marriage affects education attainment negatively, because girls often drop out of school when they marry. The causality goes the other way as well, as the ability to pursue one’s education may help delay the age at marriage. This relationship between education and child marriage is apparent in the data, in that the measures of child marriage tend to be higher among women with lower levels of education. The same relationship is observed when considering literacy. [Source: Chata Malé and Quentin Wodon, Child Marriage Series with Education Global Practice Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice, World Bank, March 2016]

“Child marriage may lead to dropouts and lower education attainment. But the reverse is true as well: keeping girls in school is often one of the best ways to delay marriage. Marrying between the ages of 15 and 17 tends to affect primarily secondary education enrollment or completion, and may not necessarily affect the completion of primary education. But marrying even earlier can also prevent girls from completing their primary education (primary school takes in principle six years to complete, but some students start primary school late and may also repeat grades, so the actual age of completion may be delayed).

“I got married because I quit school,” Mariam A., who married at the age of 15, told Human Rights Watch. According to Human Rights Watch: “ She left school after class five because going on to class six would have involved higher costs and a longer walk of 3.5 kilometers each way.Many of the girls interviewed by Human Rights Watch explained that they were married when their families could no longer afford to educate them. There were also girls who said that the decision that they should marry came first and that their leaving school was a result, not a cause, of that decision, but that was less common. [Source: “Marry Before Your House is Swept Away: Child Marriage in Bangladesh”,Human Rights Watch, June 9, 2015]

“The link between education and child marriage is borne out by research finding that women with primary, secondary, and higher education, compared to women with no formal education, were respectively 24 percent, 72 percent, and 94 percent less likely to marry at a young age. This study found that, “Women's education appeared as the most significant single determinant of child marriage as well as decline in child marriage.”

Problems Created by Child Marriages in Bangladesh

Married girls are four times more likely to be out of school than unmarried ones. Nearly half of child brides give birth before the age of 18 and 80 percent give birth before the age of 20. According to Human Rights Watch problems created by child marriages include the discontinuation of secondary education, serious health consequences including death as a result of early pregnancy, abandonment, and domestic violence from spouses and in-laws. The United Nations Population Fund said:“Child marriage robs girls of their girlhood, entrenching them and their future families in poverty, limiting their life choices, and generating high development costs for communities.”

According to the World Bank: Child marriage is associated with lower wealth, lower education levels, and higher labor force participation. These are however only correlations, not necessarily causal effects. Child marriage is recognized as a major development issue that affects girls in many developing countries. The practice has been linked to a number of health risks, higher fertility, and lower education attainment, among others. The negative impact of child marriage on a wide range of development outcomes explains why in many countries child marriage is now prohibited by law, and why the elimination of child marriage is part of the new Sustainable Development Goals. [Source: Chata Malé and Quentin Wodon, Child Marriage Series with Education Global Practice Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice, World Bank, March 2016]

“The negative impact of child marriage for a girl’s health, education, and well-being is often larger when the girl marries very early. For example, child marriage is known to have a negative impact on school enrollment and attainment. The earlier a girl marries, the more likely it is that she will drop out early and thereby have a low level of education attainment. This will not only limit her employment and earnings potential for the rest of her life, but it will also have other negative consequences for her as well as for her children.”

“I quit school because I got married. I was in class nine. My husband wouldn’t allow me to continue studying. I had to work [in the home]. Continuing education was unthinkable, 18-year-old Soraya A., who married at age 15, told Human Rights Watch. According to Human Rights Watch: For the girls interviewed who were still studying at the time of their engagement or marriage, child marriage ended their studies in all but a few cases. Even families who wished to support their daughters’ education after their marriages were largely unable to do so. “In the village people don’t study after marriage,” Saima A. told Human Rights Watch. “In a city or town, yes, but here things are different.” ““I quit school because I got married,” Soraya A., age 18, who married at age 15, told Human Rights Watch. “I was in class nine. My husband wouldn’t allow me to continue studying. I had to work [in the home]. Continuing education was unthinkable.” [Source: “Marry Before Your House is Swept Away: Child Marriage in Bangladesh”,Human Rights Watch, June 9, 2015]

“Researchers have found that 70 percent of women who married as children in Bangladesh did not use contraception prior to childbirth, compared to 49 percent of women who married as adults. The majority of girls interviewed for this report became pregnant soon after they married, because they had no information about or access to family planning, because their husbands or in-laws demanded that they become pregnant, or because they themselves felt that they needed to have children as soon as possible. Schools in Bangladesh do not provide any education on family planning, let alone assistance to students in obtaining contraceptive supplies. The most effective way to ensure that all young people have the information they need about puberty, family planning, and contraception would be to include this information in the standard mandatory school curriculum like any other examinable subject, according to UNFPA.

Health Problems Created by Child Marriages in Bangladesh

According to Human Rights Watch: In Bangladesh and elsewhere, child marriage often leads to early pregnancy, which can have severe health consequences for both mothers and babies, including dramatically elevated rates of mortality. Women in Bangladesh have a 1 in 110 chance of dying in childbirth, making such deaths “unacceptably common,” according to UNICEF. Part of the reason for this is a high birth rate among adolescent girls. Complications resulting from pregnancy and childbirth are the main cause of death among adolescent girls aged 15-19 years old in developing countries. Globally, research shows that girls aged 10-14 are five times more likely to die during delivery than mothers aged 20-24; girls aged 15-19 are still twice as likely to die during delivery than women aged 20-24. [Source: “Marry Before Your House is Swept Away: Child Marriage in Bangladesh”,Human Rights Watch, June 9, 2015]

“The children of young mothers also face higher mortality rates. Young mothers are less likely to get prenatal care and often do not have enough information about or access to proper nutrition while pregnant. Babies born to mothers under 20 years of age in low and middle-income countries face a 50 percent higher risk of still birth or dying in the first few weeks versus babies born to mothers aged 20-29. Babies born to adolescent mothers are also more likely to have low birth weight, which can have long-term health consequences.

“Due to physical immaturity, young girls are more susceptible to obstructed labor, which is a leading cause of maternal mortality globally. Obstructed labor can cause obstetric fistula, a childbirth injury that leaves its victims with urine or fecal incontinence.Data on fistula is difficult to collect because of the stigma associated with the condition and the effort involved in reaching remote areas where many of those with fistula live. A 2003 study estimated the prevalence of obstetric fistula in Bangladesh at 1.69 per 1,000 women who had ever been married. The report links child marriage and lack of medical care as key factors leading to fistula, saying, “While the proximate causes of fistulas are physical injuries, the larger causes are social i.e. poverty, lack of education, childbearing at too early age and lack of medical care. In many rural areas, girls are married off just after they experience their first menstrual flow, between 10 and 15 years of age. These girls become pregnant which leads to many unwanted conditions including mortality and long term morbidity like obstetric fistula.” Globally, UNFPA estimates that 2 million women are living with obstetric fistula injury, with 50,000 to 100,000 new cases occurring each year, in spite of the fact that the condition is almost entirely preventable through adequate medical care.

“A doctor supervising a maternal health care program in Dhaka told Human Rights Watch, “In my hospital we see many adolescent pregnancies each day, representing about 20 to 25 percent of the total antenatal cases.” She said that these adolescent patients often suffer from complications including, “pre-term labour, waters breaking early, prolonged and obstructed labour, pulmonary hypertension, restricted growth of the foetus in the uterus, anaemia, intractable nausea, vomiting and dehydration, genital injuries, malnourishment, and psychological trauma.” She described efforts her staff members make to counsel married girls and their in-laws regarding the risks of early pregnancy— and of child marriage. “I consider prevention of early marriage as very important. Counselling against early marriage and early pregnancy is a very important intervention,” she said.

Domestic Abuse, Rape and Child Marriages

According to Human Rights Watch: “Research demonstrates a strong correlation between earlier marriage and greater risk of experiencing spousal violence. A study across 7 countries found that girls who married before the age of 15 were more likely to experience spousal abuse than women who married after 25. Married girls interviewed for this report described abuse as commonplace and themselves as having limited options to resist and escape it. [Source: “Marry Before Your House is Swept Away: Child Marriage in Bangladesh”,Human Rights Watch, June 9, 2015]

“Most of the girls we interviewed were sent to live with their husbands and in-laws immediately after marriage and were expected to have sex with their husbands. They had little ability to refuse sexual relations or to determine how and when sex took place. Rashida L. married when she was 10 or 11, before she had begun menstruating. Her husband was about 25 years old. “At that time when my period started I didn’t know what it was and I didn’t tell my husband. I told another woman, and she asked how old I was and she said I shouldn’t have had sex with my husband. I said he forcibly entered me and I would cry so much that everything would get wet from my tears. It was so difficult, so painful. The first time, the next day I couldn’t even move and they took me and gave me a bath.” “He forced himself upon me and beat me and finally divorced me and sent me home,” Hafsa A., who married at age 12, said. “I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.”

“Ruhana M. married at age 12, just a few days after she began menstruating. “When my husband used to come to stay with me [have sex] I wouldn’t know how to stay with him,” she said. “I would lose consciousness and my teeth would clench and they would throw water on me. I would go out from my husband’s room to sleep with my sister and she would explain to me and then take me back to my husband’s room.” The couple were living in Dhaka, but Ruhana’s husband became frustrated with her and took her to his parents who live in a village and left her there to live with them.

“Many young brides we interviewed had experienced assault and other physical abuse at the hands of their husbands and in-laws.“He tied my hands and feet and started putting me in a bag and said he would kill me with a machete and throw my body in the river,” Rashida L. said, about the husband she married at age 10 or 11. Laki B., age 15, was eight months pregnant and asleep along with her parents and siblings in her parents’ two-room bamboo home when they awoke to the sound of crackling. Laki’s estranged husband had set fire to their house. The family managed to escape, but the house was half destroyed.

“Laki, who married when she was 12 and her husband was 27, told Human Rights Watch she fled back to her parents several months earlier when her husband’s long history of beating her culminated in him kicking her in the stomach when she was 5 months pregnant. The abuse began immediately after the marriage, she said, first at the hands of Laki’s parents-in-law but then from her husband too. Laki’s explanation for why they beat her was, “Because I wasn’t very good looking, and also because I eat too much rice. Since I was pregnant, if I eat too much rice they beat me up.”

Abandonment and Child Marriages in Bangladesh

According to Human Rights Watch: “A number of girls interviewed by Human Rights Watch described facing extreme financial hardship and/or social stigma as a result of being abandoned by their husbands who were not compelled to pay support, even for children.“The marriages that preceded abandonment were often violent and deeply troubled. Faced with a reality of being unable to feed their children, being returned to parents who do not want them back, and/or facing extreme social stigma as a result of the broken marriage, some girls interviewed by Human Rights Watch saw returning to abusive husbands and in-laws who had rejected them as the best of their intolerable options. [Source: “Marry Before Your House is Swept Away: Child Marriage in Bangladesh”,Human Rights Watch, June 9, 2015]

““When I was five months pregnant, I was sent back,” said Roshana M., who married at 14. Her in-laws demanded 50,000 taka [$649] in additional dowry after she was married and abandoned her after she was unable to pay. That was a year and a half ago—Roshana is now 15 or 16 and has a one-year-old daughter. “They’re not taking me back. I want to go back. Even if they beat me, I want to go back,” Roshana said. “People will say bad things about me now that I have a child, so even though it is very painful for me I still want to go back.”

““I begged him on my knees to take me back, but he refused,” said Hafsa A., who married at 12. Her husband abandoned her under pressure from his mother who was unhappy that Hafsa’s family had not been able to pay a dowry. Hafsa’s mother-in-law also told her son falsely that Hafsa spoke on the phone to other men. “One day he brought me home and said, ‘I’ll come and get you in a few days,’ but then he sent me a divorce paper. For a girl, after her parents’ home, her in-laws’ house is her home, so I wanted to go back there. Girls don’t get married twice, so I knew I had to go back.” Hafsa has now been back with her parents for a year; her husband shows no signs of changing his mind and taking her back.

““My in-laws asked my parents to take me back, but my parents refused – they said we married her and she will stay here,” said Sediqa A., who married at age 15 to a 28-year-old man. “Then my in-laws forcibly divorced me.” Because Sediqa’s parents did not want her back, she had planned to stay with her husband, even though she was beaten almost daily by her husband and in-laws, often with a stick, and deprived of food. However, one day after she had been married for about a year, her in-laws took her to the house of the chair of the Union Parishad (the local government council), where divorce papers had already been prepared and were awaiting signature. “They told me to sign. They didn’t give me a chance to say anything, and I signed,” Sediqa said. She then returned to live with her parents, at age 16, and she is now studying again. “I said no to the marriage, but despite that they got me married. I’ll continue studying and find my own way.”

Work and the Decrease But Persistence in Child Marriages in Bangladesh

Child marriages are less common today than they were in the past in part because more women work and income levels are rising. The New York Times reported: Child marriage rates have been gradually dropping under steady pressure from the government. In 2000, 65 percent of girls were married before age 18, and 38 percent were married before 15, according to Unicef.” In 2017 those rates “dropped to 52 percent and 18 percent.”

A 2017 World Bank/ICRW study estimated that ending child marriage in Bangladesh could see a 12 percent rise in earnings and productivity for Bangladeshi women who married early. According to the World Bank: “Measures of child marriage remain high in Bangladesh. The share of women ages 18-22 who married as children is 59.4 percent, but it has decreased rapidly over time. The share of girls marrying very early, before the age of 15, has declined as well. This suggests that child marriage has decreased over time. [Source: Chata Malé and Quentin Wodon, Child Marriage Series with Education Global Practice Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice, World Bank, March 2016]

“The fact that girls who marry early may marry less early is confirmed by the measures based on the 15 years age threshold which suggest a larger decline in the headcount for those measures. The share of girls marrying as children has decreased by 23 percentage points over the last 25 years (the approximate time gap between the first and last age group). The decline for extreme child marriage (15 years threshold) is larger at 28 points.

“Relationships between child marriage and labor force participation can be complex and depend on context. In some countries child marriage may reduce labor force participation through higher fertility. In others, if child marriage is associated with poverty, women may leave little choice but to work. Other effects could be at work, so that the relationship between child marriage and labor force participation is complex. In Bangladesh, child marriage measures are similar whether women are working or not. However, the type of work associated most with child marriage is work without cash earnings, whether unpaid or with in kind payment, which may be work with low productivity. These basic statistics however do not imply causality.

Government in Bangladesh and Child Marriage

According to Human Rights Watch: 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. While NGOs have reached some communities with awareness raising efforts about the risks of child marriage, such efforts by the government are noticeably absent. Attempts by some government officials and police to make communities aware that child marriage is illegal are undermined by community members’ experiences of local government officials frequently facilitating child marriage by providing forged birth certificates in exchange for bribes. [Source: Human Rights Watch]

“The government’s failure to enforce the existing law against child marriage and address the factors that contribute to it means that child marriage is a frequent coping mechanism for poor families. The Bangladesh government is failing to take effective action against child marriage. In 2014, at the international “Girl Summit” held in London, United Kingdom, Bangladesh’s prime minister vowed to end child marriage. She outlined a series of steps to do so, including reform of the law and development of a national plan of action by the end of 2014. Neither of these steps have been achieved. Worse yet, the Bangladesh government has taken a step in the wrong direction by proposing to lower the minimum age of marriage for girls from 18 to 16 years old.

“Many local government officials also fail girls at risk. Awareness is growing that marriage of girls under age 18 is illegal under Bangladeshi law. But this awareness is fatally undermined by widespread complicity by local government officials in facilitating child marriages. Interviewees consistently described local government officials issuing forged birth certificates showing girls’ ages as over 18, in return for bribes of as little as US$1.30. Even when marriages are prevented by local officials, as they sometimes are, families find it easy to hold the marriage in a different jurisdiction.

“In some other ways, Bangladesh has been cited as a development success story, including in the area of women’s rights. The United Nations cited Bangladesh’s “impressive” poverty reduction from 56.7 percent in 1991-1992 to 31.5 percent in 2010. Bangladesh has achieved gender parity in primary and secondary school enrollment. Maternal mortality declined by 40 percent between 2001 and 2010. Bangladesh’s success in achieving some development goals begs the question of why the country’s rate of child marriage remains so high, among the worst in the world.

Bangladesh has a law banning child marriages. In spite of this law. Muslim cleric organized a mass wedding for 150 boys, involving children as young as 12, at an Islamic school in the town of Narsingdi, 25 miles east of Dhaka. The Child Marriage Restraint Act 2017 includes a loophole where a court can allow child marriage in “special cases” (for both girls and boys). The Act does not explicitly define what those “special cases” might be, but there is fear that this loophole will allow girls under 18 in cases of rape and early pregnancy to marry their perpetrators to avoid social stigma and shame.

Bangladesh Weakens Law Against Underage Marriage

In February 2017, Maher Sattar and Ellen Barry wrote in the New York Times: Bangladesh’s Parliament softened its landmark law against underage marriage, a move that human rights activists say could roll back the country’s decades-long campaign to curtail teenage pregnancy and maternal and infant mortality. A new provision in the Child Marriage Restraint Act, which dates to 1929, allows girls under the age of 18 to marry in some circumstances. The change was met with praise from Islamist groups, which said it fell more in line with traditional religious practices. [Source: Maher Sattar and Ellen Barry, New York Times, February 27, 2017]

“Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and other government officials have argued that the new loophole is necessary to save pregnant teenagers from social ostracism. “Our rural society is very cruel,” said Rebecca Momin, the head of the parliamentary committee on women and children. “They will point their finger at the pregnant girl,” she said. “She will be an outcast in school and elsewhere. People will say nasty things to the girl’s parents.” Opponents of the bill reject that reasoning, arguing that teenagers in conservative rural Bangladesh rarely become pregnant unless they are married. A 2015 study by the Manusher Jonno Foundation, a nonprofit group based in Dhaka, the capital, found that fewer than 1.5 percent of underage marriages took place after the girl had become pregnant.

“The government tried to revise the law in 2014, when it introduced a draft that would have reduced the legal age of marriage to 16 from 18. But that proposal created a major backlash and was rescinded. Under the new law, each case of underage marriage will be investigated by a committee of local officials and approved by a court. Opponents protest that local officials are already colluding with parents to arrange marriages for daughters under 18, by altering girls’ birth certificates so that they appear to be older.

“Rights advocates say that existing laws have been effective at dissuading parents from pressuring young daughters into arranged marriages. Soumya Brata Guha of Plan International, a children’s welfare group in Dhaka, said imams often heeded warnings from government officials. “If you send the wrong message with this law, then it could be detrimental,” she said. “That is the worry.”

“And some girls have used the laws themselves. Sharmin Akter, a 17-year-old student in Jamalpur in northern Bangladesh, was 13 when her parents told her they had arranged for her to marry an older man she did not know. She enlisted the support of a child marriage prevention committee, consisting of local adolescents, who called in the police to intervene, and her parents conceded, she said. “My life has been a fight,” she said. “But finally I’ve won something.” Now, she said, her goal is to persuade her parents to allow her to continue her education. “They say that when girls get educated, they become bad women and have trouble finding a husband,” she said.

“Critics of the change say Ms. Hasina agreed to soften the law to attract the votes of a conservative Islamic electorate. Indeed, the move was welcomed by Mahfuzul Haque, the chief of the Dhaka chapter of Hefazat-e-Islam, a powerful Islamist organization that has organized vast rallies in the capital to demand changes to government textbooks. “In the eyes of Islam, this is the correct decision,” he said. “Having a law that you cannot get married before a certain age, this I cannot agree with.”

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, Bangladesh Tourism Board, Bangladesh National Portal (www.bangladesh.gov.bd), The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Wikipedia and various books, websites and other publications.

Last updated February 2022


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