Home ›› 29 Dec 2021 ›› Opinion
Imet Arzina (pseudonym) in Karail slum while carrying out a survey for my organisation. She is a climate refugee from Assasuni Upazila of Satkhira district. Arzina was 11 years old and in class six when cyclone Aila devastated her area in 2009. She was dreaming of higher education, but her dreams were shattered when Aila flooded her house and agricultural land with saline water. Coming back from the shelter house after months; she found her favourite place, a place where she used to play games, still under water. Her homestead was in ruins and her family had to shift to an embankment along with their neighbours. Being a subsistence farmer, her father struggled to provide his family with food and other basic needs. Managing educational costs for Arzina became a more cumbersome burden than tackling hunger. After four years, in 2013, Arzina got married to 27 years old Omar Faruk at the age of 15 and shifted to Dhaka. Now Arzina is a mother of two children, struggling with economic and health issues.
Bangladesh, along with the rest of the world observed International Migrants Day on 18th December with a number of programmes. Development organizations published surveys and research reports. But they mainly focused on immigrants who work abroad, not the internal migrants and climate refugees. But the plight of the climate refugees and internal migrants should be highlighted as one of the key reasons behind the increase of child marriages in Bangladesh.
Cyclone Sidr, Aila, and Amphan hit Bangladesh causing a lot of casualties. Even now, there are thousands of people suffering from lack of safe drinking water, nutritious food and proper education. They are passing their days amid crushing poverty. The number of cyclones is increasing alarmingly with increasing frequency. According to a research carried out by the National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine (NIPSOM), 61 cyclones hit Bangladesh from the year 1582 to 2020. That means a cyclone per six years and 4 months; where 27 cyclones hit between 1970 to 2020–in other words, a cyclone per 1 year and 10 months. Not only cyclones, floods are also occurring; while Bangladesh struggles with climate change. If we look back, in 2020; Bangladesh was flooded three times in a row. All those directly affect the rural poverty stricken people and they become poorer and cases like that of Arzina increases.
For example, the Kawakhola union has a higher ratio of child marriage. 25 thousand people live in this shoal area in Sirajganj Sadar; which is situated in the middle of Jamuna and gets flooded every year. No electrical lines exist here but there is100 per cent solar panel coverage. It is quite an inaccessible area to travel. They were forced to build their union parishad building and a couple of primary schools in the Sirajganj municipal area due to recurrent flooding in the union. People living in the area are mostly uneducated and live under the poverty line which leads them to get their daughter married at an early age. The same holds true for Kurigram, Chapainawabganj, and other disaster-prone and coastal areas.
According to a UN report, Bangladesh is among one of the top 10 countries regarding the prevalence of child marriage in the world. Studies show that child marriage has increased by 13 per cent due to the Covid-19 pandemic. On the other hand, Bangladesh is in the 13th position of climate risk, according to the climate index 2021. The World Bank has warned that around 1.3 million people will lose their homes in the coastal areas of Bangladesh as a result of climate change. So, with increasing damaging impacts of climate change poverty and child marriage will increase too.
Why do climate change and disasters encourage child marriage in Bangladesh? The first and foremost cause is that whenever a disaster strikes parents feel unsafe about the safety of their daughters’ safety. They believe that the immediate solution would be to marry them off, even if they are underaged. It is a kind of ‘damage control’ measure for them. During floods and cyclones, schools are used as shelter houses; which disrupt studies for months. Most of the girl students become dropouts. The decline in income due to climate change-related disasters leads to a crisis in the agricultural livelihoods and negatively affects the family’s ability to keep their children in school, which increases child labour and child marriage. Although the effects of climate change fall heavily on the poor, this is not gender-neutral; so, girls and women become the worst victims of natural disasters and their aftermath. Natural disasters have an indirect effect on the health and well-being of women and girls. Emergency shelters have lack of privacy which also leads to child marriage in the disaster-prone areas in Bangladesh. If we look into statistics, we will find that Dhaka district is the most affected by child marriage in Bangladesh. It should be noted here that Dhaka has the highest number of climate refugees too. So one can easily observe the correlation here. Frequent cyclones, floods, and river erosion have left many families living at constant risk of segregation and growing poverty, affecting girls’ schooling and marriage decisions.
The government of Bangladesh has taken a number of initiatives regarding disaster management. But these are mostly focused on infrastructure and relief. On the other hand, Bangladesh is committed to stopping child marriage and obtaining Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) within 2030. We need to look carefully in the disaster-prone areas to achieve our goal. The national helpline 999 has played a tremendous role in preventing child marriages, but this is not so much applicable to inaccessible areas like Assasuni or Kawakhola. Generating mass awareness is key to preventing child marriages in those areas. The role of Qazis is also important in stopping child marriages. For this, training of Qazis has to be arranged. Proper compensation should be given to the affected people to secure their livelihood and prevent them from becoming climate refugees. Local government officials like the chairman and the members have to play an active role in this. TV, radio, and different digital media have to broadcast programmes on preventing child marriage. We have already got positive results regarding maternal health issues by highlighting them in the media. In addition to this, a separate policy needs to be established and chapters on child marriages should be incorporated in the textbooks.
We have to think of a better and sustainable world for every child. Research suggests that children who are married off with low levels of education are at higher risk of domestic and/or sexual violence, which can have lasting psychological implications. Thus, the government must waste no time in adopting aggressive measures that will bring these child brides back to school. At the same time, the authorities must acknowledge its failure in preventing child marriage during the pandemic, and come up with proper monitoring mechanisms to ensure that the Child Marriage Restraint Act is actually enforced. This is currently not happening since, despite it being illegal to solemnise or conduct a child marriage, these events are still occurring at kazi offices, and notary publics are abetting them by providing fake birth certificates.
The writer is Communication and Advocacy Officer, Shastho Shurokkha Foundation. He can be contacted at [email protected]
