Pandemic drives up child marriage and schools dropout

Child marriage which is prevalent in Bangladesh has turned alarming in the last one-year and a half as educational institutions were closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Reports on recent child marriages received from schools in remote areas are even worse. According to a report published in a national daily on Tuesday, eight out of nine students of Class VIII in Sardob High School in Kurigram have been married off. Only one student has returned to class as school resumed. Of the total 225 students of the school, 63 are girls. The majority of the girl students of other classes have also been married off.
According to another report, at least 50 girls of Alipur Adarsha Maddhyamik Bidyalay were victims of child marriage. They have not returned to the school. This is the picture not only of these two schools. Such a situation is prevalent in most schools in the remote areas of the country. Meanwhile, a survey by Manusher Jonno Foundation has found that child marriage has seen nearly 50 per cent increase during the corona period. Around 48 per cent of girls aged between 13 and 15 years are being married off. The survey, report of which has been published recently, was conducted in 84 upazilas of 21 districts from April to October last year. It says a total of 12,886 incidents of child marriage took place in the 21 districts. Barguna saw the highest 1,512 child marriages while the number was 1,272 in Kurigram and 1,222 in Nilphamari. During corona times, parents who were insolvent and lacking in awareness married off their under-age daughters.
The minimum age of marriage of girls has been set at 18 years and of boys at 21 years. Focusing on the issue, BRAC’s Community Empowerment Programme (CEP) reported 189-child marriages between April 2019 and March 2020, compared to 289 in 2021, an increase of 53 per cent. Another organisation, World Vision Bangladesh, witnessed 486 child marriages and prevented 800 more between March 2020 and 2021 in the 28 districts where they work. Stopping child marriage is one of the main priorities of the government, but it exists only in papers. Local people’s representatives, administration, law enforcement agencies and teachers should join hands to help stop the curse.