Home ›› 05 Sep 2021 ›› Opinion
Child marriage is not a new notion in our social perspective, rather it has always been a part and parcel of rural culture. However, the severity and the kind of trauma a female child goes through owing to such premature decision related to their lives vary from family to family depending on age. Child marriage has always been a menace, but the pandemic has just exacerbated the situation for the tender-aged girls.
In a developing country like Bangladesh, many people don’t even realize the harmful aspects of child marriage. Bangladesh has the second highest rate of child marriage in the world after Niger. According to reports by (UNICEF) published in 2020, 29 per cent of women aged between 20-24 years in South Asia were married before they even reached 18. When it comes to Bangladesh, the rate, as estimated by UNICEF, is 51 per cent. That’s quite frightening!
The pandemic has just aggravated the situation. According to information provided by the gender justice and diversity department of Brac in March 2021, the rate of child marriage inched up by 13 per cent owing to the adverse impacts of the rogue virus. To our utter surprise, 231 child marriages happened across the country in the first three months (March to June, 2020) of the lockdown.
In Bangladesh, there are several factors which are directly contributing to the high rate of child marriage. Many families marry off their young girls just to protect the girls’ sexuality. In our social context, marrying off a girl at a young age means that the girl’s sexuality, therefore the girl’s family honour, will be protected. Such imposition of family honour on a girl’s individuality undermines the fact that all are equal in a society. In fact, the rate of child marriage is still on the rise owing to the fact that women in our society are still considered inferior to men and they are often subjected to different kinds of injustice and violence in the name of protection.
Another major reason, probably the most significant one, is the economic considerations associated with marrying off a young girl. To call a spade a spade, girls are not valued as much as boys in our social perspective. They are seen as a burden. Especially, in the families suffering from abject poverty, parents get it in their heads that giving a daughter in marriage will allow them to reduce family expenses as they will have one less person to feed and educate. Meanwhile, dowry is another strong reason. In our society, the groom’s family often agrees to marry off their son to a girl child with a hope of getting a good amount of money. On the other hand, the bride’s family considers the fact that they have to pay less money if the bride is young.
However, many NGOs and other government institutions have been working relentlessly to reduce the rate of child marriage. In many cases, they score a win in stopping child marriage, but most of the times they fail because of the desperation of the parents. So, what to do in such a backdrop when economic insolvency is pushing the rate higher? The answer lies in the question – economic alternatives that will give hope to the families can turn out to be a game-changer for the young girls at risks of being married off early.
A recent study has shown promise and ignited a new ray of hope in this regard. According to the findings of a study by Stanford University and Duke University, giving cooking oil as an incentive to the young girls’ families can prevent child marriage. This is amazing as this study indeed gives the policymakers and others working in this field a food for thought on how facilitating families in the rural areas with economic alternatives can put an end to child marriage.
A multi-year study titled ‘A Signal to End Child Marriage: Theory and Experimental Evidence from Bangladesh’, conducted by Stanford University and Duke University in collaboration with ‘Save the Children’ in Bangladesh from 2007-2017, has revealed startling information. According to the findings, such an initiative reduced child marriage under the age of 18 by 17 per cent and by 18 per cent for those under the age of 16. During the afore-mentioned timeframe, those families were given cooking oil on the condition that they could not get their daughters married off before they turn 18.
The outcome attests the fact that such incentive might work. Our government could also map out something like this to incentivize the families that have girls aged under 18 to persuade them not to opt for child marriage. Moreover, the government could also explore other alternatives. For example – the government could offer different facilities for those families who will not marry off their young daughters (aged under 18), rather concentrate on educating them. The range of facilities may include easy education loan and other types of loan arrangement for those families at low interest rates and priority when it comes to availing of different schemes (like Ashrayan Project) and allowances.
Meanwhile, other alternatives can also be explored. For instance – the families having girl child could be enlightened about the ways even a girl can earn money and contribute to the family expenses. While it’s traditionally perceived that only male members of the family bring home the bacon, a reversal of the perception could convince many to prioritize girls as well. It could be inculcated in them that it is now possible to achieve autarky even from the comfort of home.
No matter how much we talk about this issue, the fact is that child marriage is largely associated with the fragile economic condition of the families. That’s why, it is imperative that this social disease be treated with the right medicines following the right prescription. And the right prescription encompasses the ways the families having a girl child can be empowered economically. Going over such probability and devising a long-term plan could be a good first step.
The writer is a freelance columnist
