Home ›› 05 Oct 2021 ›› Nation
Kurigram, like many other districts in Bangladesh, recorded a sharp rise in child marriage during the pandemic with more than 500 schoolgirls married off in Fulbari upazila alone, according to the district administration.
The upazila’s Borovita Girls’ High School and Borovita High School in Borovita union saw the highest number of their students married off, Upazila Secondary Education Officer Md Abdul Hai said.
Around 87 girls in Borovita Girls’ High School and 55 girls, including three SSC examinees in Borovita High School have been the victim of child marriage, said the headmasters of the schools.
Md Matiur Rahman Khandaker, the headmaster of Borovita Girls’ High School said, “Based on preliminary information, we have received data of marriages of 87 students of 6th to 10th grade and SSC candidates.”
Of course, it was not possible to go to every house and get information about the marriage. In many cases, the news has been confirmed by classmates and neighbours.
“However, the actual number may increase further,” said the headmaster.
He also said the Upazila Secondary Education Officer had been informed through a detailed letter containing names and other information.
In Borovita Girls’ High School, two students of class 6, eleven students of class 7, seventeen of class 8, twenty-eight of class 9, fourteen of class 10 and 13 SSC examinees became victims of this debilitating social disease ‘child marriage’.
Before the closure of educational institutions due to the pandemic, the average attendance of students in this school was 70-90 per cent per day. After reopening, it is down to 40-50 per cent.
Many students, including Nupur, Ashamoni, Nasima and Atika Khatun, eighth-graders at the school, said on the very first day of school after reopening on September 12. They were upset to hear of the marriage of as many as 17 of their friends.
The headmaster of Borovita Girls’ High School, Md Matiur Rahman Khandaker has stopped child marriages of 25 to 30 students in his school in the last one and a half years before the pandemic. However, 85 students of his institution fall victim of child marriage during a pandemic because of communication barriers.
Borovita High School headmaster Md Sharif Uddin Mia blamed poverty.
He said most of the students’ families live in sandbar areas, and they are from poor families. The trend of child marriage has increased due to the closure of schools. If the school remained open, there would not have been so many child marriages.
“Many married people have already started coming to school. I hope the rest will come very soon,” said the headmaster.
In this regard, Upazila Secondary Education Officer Mohammad Abdul Hai said according to the information given by 43 secondary and lower secondary institutions of the upazila, a total of 523 girl students were married off in those institutions. “We are also collecting data from 73 educational institutions of this upazila.”
He further said they had instructed the home visits of the teachers of all the institutions. “We have already started working to collect the actual information of these students as well as to make them come back to school.”
In addition, the headmaster Md Matiur Rahman Khandaker, said, “We are also going to the homes of the students who are married off. I am alerting the parents to let their daughter come to the school. We are working to make students head to school again.”
Meanwhile, Fulbari Upazila Nirbahi Officer Sumon Das said, “We have started with various programmes, including meetings and rallies to prevent child marriage.” He called upon the people’s representatives of each union and the civil society to build resistance against child marriage.
Kurigram District Education Officer (DEO) Md Shamsul Alam said information on child marriage in all the upazilas had not been received yet.
The DEO further said that the married students are already going to school. Hopefully, the number of student attendance will gradually increase.
However, the way child marriage is increasing at an alarming rate is a matter of concern for the future. He urged everyone to work together to prevent child marriage and save the future of these girl students.
